The Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige has said it is right for Nigerians to complain of hunger as a result of the economic situation of the country.
Senator Ngige said that the Federal Government has recorded remarkable impact with just one completed budget cycle, stressing that with the passage of the 2017 budget, it was expected that Nigerians will witness tremendous economic improvement.
The Minister who was speaking with newsmen in Abuja while revealing the two years score card of the President Muhammadu Buhari’s All Progressives Congress, APC-led administration, appealed to Nigerians to be patient with the government. According to him,
“We have fought recession and I can tell you that by next quarter, Nigeria will be out of recession completely and we take onto full growth. Right now, the growth we are witnessing is growth out of contraction.
“The APC government has done only one budget cycle and that budget cycle ended May 5 in terms of capital. That same budget cycle has seen us spending a lot of money on infrastructural development. You go all over the federation, you see road construction going on. “Companies are back to sites. I can measure the level of success and tell you.
This is because the construction workers’ union has come to tell me that those on stood-off, those on half-pay, those who were laid off completely; that they have been called back. “That shows me we are making a lot of progress. You go to some parts of Nigeria, you see old roads being rehabilitated and new roads being done. New railway lines are also being marked and laid. Railway workers going back to work.
“So for me, I do know that with only one budget cycle done, and we have achieved this level of success, by the time we do the second year budget cycle, which is going start immediately this new budget is signed and end next year, I can tell you Nigerians will feel greater impact. I don’t have doubt whatsoever.
“Yes, Nigerians tell us they are hungry, we know and they have the right to say so. But I tell you, the worst is over. The good days shall be ours again. The area of leakages in the system where people get easy money is blocked.
“The single treasury account system has blocked a lot of money from sinking down as corruption money. The current method of payment has also removed the ghost workers too. These ghost workers are workers who pretend to be one in three.
“They collect three persons’ payment but with the IPS system, it is now one man, one payment, one woman, one payment. Equal job, for equal pay.” The Minister further said,
“So, we are asking Nigerians to give us the benefit of the doubt, to be a little more patient with us. We are doing what they sent us here to do.
“They sent us with their votes and told us to come and salvage a government that was drowning and we are doing just that. So, we are on a rescue mission and every rescue operation is no easy thing.”