The Northern Elders Forum (NEF) has suggested that the way of out recession is to sack 50 percent of the Federal workers in civil service.
Spokesperson of the Northern Elders Forum, Prof Ango Abdulllahi has given his opinion on the way out of recession. According to him, Nigeria doesn’t need to sell their national asset rather they should sack lost of the Federal government workers.
He said that, the sacking of about 50 percent of the work force in government or reduction of federal government ‘s cost will save the situation .
“The present recession was hinged on the fact that 2016 budget was pegged at N6trillion with the recurrent taking N4 trillion, while N2 trillion is set aside for capital projects. “Nigeria is a poor country and it is a consumption based. we import and consume yet we hardly produce. ”
“There are two ways we can come out of this recession, the first is that we have to reduce the workforce by 50 percent. We have a large unproductive workforce with minimum wage of N18,000 per month both at federal, state and local levels. But I know it will be difficult to achieve that.
“The second one is that we can cut down the salaries, and allowances by 50 percent. Nigeria has become so poor so we have to consume less. What kind of workforce do we have that cannot generate 5000MW of my electricity, that cannot build good roads etc?
“The idea to dispose of the National assets should be disposed of is bad and unacceptable. Look at Nepa, it is a public company that is over 100 years old. It was sold to same people who vandalised the economy and made it not to work. Is Nepa any better today?
“They have stolen enough dollars and rubbished the Naira. In short time, the Naira has been devalued by over 200percent. These are people who have stashed away dollars. They want Nigeria’s assets to be sold to them as scraps. NEC is not serious.
“Nigeria is broke today and like I said the recurrent should be cut down. Labour, Federal,Government, the National Assembly and all relevant sectors should dialogue over this. Our National assets must never be sold. “