Fashola rejects FG’s proposed austerity measure

The Lagos State Government has dismissed the Federal Government’s proposed austerity measure because “the reason given for the proposal was largely due to the central government’s inefficiency.”

Governor Babatunde Fashola stated this during an interactive session with Student Union leaders of tertiary institutions in the state at the weekend in Lagos. He aid that before the Federal Government could come back to the citizenry to say ‘tighten your belt’, it ought to do its job first.

He condemned the plan to raise money in austerity period by increasing Value Added Tax (VAT), adding that the implication was that all of the consumables like water and soft drinks would cost more.

“That is why we quarrel with that austerity formula. We think that this is a time when you need creative and effective people in the economy. The government that cannot deliver electricity to you and cannot deliver security and could not buy guns for armed forces when oil was selling at over 100 dollars per barrel cannot do it when oil prices are 50 dollars per barrel. They cannot do more with less because they cannot do anything with more,” he stated.

“Largely because of their inefficiency, they have now come to say tighten your belt as austerity has come. They said this is because they are losing 400,000 barrels of oil per day. They should stop losing 400,000 barrels first because 400,000 barrels even at 50 dollars would give you about 20 million dollars per day. When you multiply that by N190 it would give you about N3.8billion a day that is being lost,” the governor said.