Nigeria spent more than it saved from crude oil earnings between 2005 and 2015 - Waziri Adio

Nigeria spent more than it saved from crude oil earnings between 2005 and 2015 - Waziri Adio

- Waziri Adio, the executive secretary of NEITI, stated that based on statistics, Nigeria spent more than what it saved from oil from 2005 to 2015, amounting to no savings at all

- The Buhari appointee stated that while it is good to spend, the nation needed savings so that it can spend from that

- According to Waziri, it makes sense to save, since the country is dependent on revenue generated from natural resources

The executive secretary of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), Waziri Adio, has disclosed that between 2005 and 2015, Nigeria spent more than what it saved from crude oil revenue, The Cable reports.

Legit.ng gathers that Adio made his comments during an interview with Arise TV on Thursday, July 20.

The Buhari appointee stated that the spending spree reveals that the country made no saving during that period.

Citing statistics, the NEITI boss revealed that between 2005 and 2015, $201.2billion entered into the excess crude account, while the country spent $204.7billion.

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He stated: “Between January 2005 and June 2015, the money that entered into the excess crude oil account as savings was $201.2 billion but the country spent $204.7 billion within the same period, which means that the country spent more than what it saved from oil from 2005 to 2015, and this amounts to no savings at all.

“Even if the country had saved 25 percent of the $201.2 billion, by the time prices of oil started falling, we would have had about N50.3 billion in excess crude oil account alone.

“We have been in the journey of saving our earnings for over 30 years now, but the problem we have is that we save and spend instead of saving and keeping.

“So we need to look back as a country and know where we got it wrong. There is good need to spend but it will be easier if we have savings so that we can spend from what we have saved.

“We are not against savings but we should be able to spend from what we saved. When we had a boom, we were saving but our spending became far more than our savings.

“Yes we know there are some infrastructural and developmental challenges that need to be addressed with money but we need to develop the culture of saving as a country.

“It makes sense to save especially when we depend on revenue generated from natural resources.”

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Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that Goodluck Jonathan revealed how he was forced to spend from the excess crude oil revenue account during his administration.

The former president made this revelation during an interview programme with Bloomberg TV.

Jonathan revealed that state governors were to blame for pressurizing him to spend from the reserve fund thereby reducing the $20 billion at the inception of his administration left by Olusegun Obasanjo to about $2 billion when he left office on May 29, 2015.

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Source: Legit.ng

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