The NNPC is disturbed by the findings of the NEITI report for many reasons. The first is when an audit is carried out on any organisation, the organisation is engaged with a view to reconciling the figures; smooth areas of disagreements and agreements.
Last week, the focus was on the micro-economic impact of subsidy removal, in other words, its effect on individuals and the new choices the policy has thrown up for people whose lives have now become unsettled in many ways. This week, the attention turns to groups; specifically it addresses the low income group and the middle class.
Years ago, while still in the university reading economics, I came across a pamphlet warning economists to always go beyond abstractions when discussing the effect of economic policies. He pointed out that the 10 per cent annual GDP growth claimed by the Communist USSR was purchased at the cost of over two million deaths a year.
The prospects and the problems associated with the Sovereign Wealth Fund, SWF, are often inextricably intertwined because the funds to be managed are still subject to the judgments of “doubts and certainty” exercised by the people selected to manage the funds.
Last week when investors on the Nigerian Stock Exchange were taking in the bad news that the All-Share Index, ASI, had reached its lowest level in eight years, the Council of the NSE made what was supposed to be a re-assuring announcement.
Last week, the first part of this series ended abruptly midway into the title SOURCE OF CHEAP FUNDS. The rest would make no sense published; so permit me to start the section all over. Dele.
There are only two families in the world, my old grandmother used to say, the Haves and the Have-nots”.
“The worst thing that can happen to a leader is to look back and discover nobody is following”.
President John Kennedy, 1917-1963.
Dr Okonjo-Iweala already received my sincere welcome back to the hot seat, which had got increasingly hotter, for her courage and patriotism – even if the courage borders on foolhardiness and the patriotism laced with a martyr complex
