Finance minister speaks to Pulse on the economy

The Finance minister,

In an interview session in Lagos on Saturday, November 12, 2016, Adeosun explained that it will take sometime before the masses start feeling the impact of the funds injected into the economy.

Adeosun said that the administration is so concerned and determined to put basic infrastructures in place after projects have been stalled due to lack of finance.

She said: "There are a number of reasons why the impact of the injected fund into the economy is not felt by the masses and common Nigerian on the streets or as people would like. One is this, of course these are long term projects and you have to go through procurement process which slowed us down."

Speaking further, she said: "Secondly, many contractors who haven’t been paid since 2013 sat on the first tranche paid to them because they didn’t know when another payment is coming but when we paid the second funds, which is another N350billion, we now started seeing a lot of activities, so if you think about the Lagos-Ibadan expressway, you will find out that there are more work going on than in the last three months and that is because the contractor said, look we haven’t been paid since 2012 and you want us to work but after we were able to pay twice, they knew we meant business.

"We are still planning to release another fund, hopefully, before the end of the year to the contractors because we are very committed to these and we know the only way to get this economy to move is this and that is why the impact hasn’t really been felt and also you will need to follow due process, you can’t just do the contracts yourself, so we have been advertising and reaching out to people giving the Nigerians the opportunity to partake, so that slowed things a bit down but I think that is better for everybody and there is more transparency in what we do," she said.

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Adeosun was in Lagos as one of the speakers at the KICC facilitated wealth creation platform which held on Saturday, November 12, 2016.