Why China keeps soaring (I)

Our GDP rose to the level of 80 trillion yuan (12.3 trillion US dollars). Over 13 million urban and rural jobs were created. Our oldage insurance system now covers more than 900 million people, and 1.35 billion people are covered by basic medical insurance. More than 10 million rural residents were lifted out of poverty… 3.4 million people were relocated from povertystricken areas and now live in new warm housing. The construction of 6 million apartments in shanty areas has begun ahead of schedule… Our country’s great development has been achieved by the people, and its fruits should be shared by the people… The Party committees, governments, and officials at all levels must constantly hold in their hearts the interests and concerns of the people, and regard the benefit of the people as their highest career accomplishment. They must think for the people, respond to their needs, and work for the greater happiness of the people.”

I meant to write this article a long time ago. I mean since the beginning of this year. It was around the time that President Buhari read his budget speech. As we know, our own budget is hopefully going to be fully assented and put into play in the next few days - if nothing else untoward happens. If this is done, we would be lucky, as we are used to having this done by August each year. And in a few months, we would be told that the budget is being rounded up and ministries should return balances to the treasury. This is despite the fact that a major chunk of our budget is for the privileges of our high and mighty. Those closest to the booty in Nigeria, simply stretch their hands and grab the money. We have agonized over this for too long. Things will never change except we get new revolutionary thinking into play. Meanwhile, another chunk of our budget disappears by way of corruption. A good decoy for corruption, as noted by none else but the World Bank, is through ‘infrastructure projects’. That is where large chunks of money can disappear. We have planned a lot of that. And even though the infrastructure we planned for are direly needed, the problem is the greed that has seized our system. Between corruption, and impunity plus hubris - a scenario where a few in government (especially politicians and those guys in the National Assembly), see nothing wrong with maxing out on illegal allowances and benefits while the nation goes