The House of Representatives on Tuesday urged the Federal Government to save funds for future generations of Nigeria by increasing earnings and diversification of resources, and urgent population control.
The House also asked the government to focus more on non-oil sectors of the economy by adopting alternative sources of revenue to enable foreign inflow from oil earnings to go straight to the Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) without affecting budget financing.
It further urged the Federal Government to secure approval from the National Assembly before tampering with the country’s savings and mandated the Committee on Legislative Compliance to ensure implementation.
These resolutions were sequel to the unanimous adoption at plenary of a motion sponsored by Chinedu Obidigwe from Anambra State.
Moving the motion, Obidigwe expressed worry that the Federal Government had spent over N1.8 trillion on debts servicing in the first five months of the year 2021, representing approximately 98percent of the total revenue generated within the period.
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He said this calls for the question of where the country’s savings are; stressing that the Federal Government ought to make conscious and concerted efforts to secure the future of Nigerians.
The lawmaker noted that Nigeria’s SWF is aimed at saving money for future generations; providing stabilisation of funds to defend the economy against commodity (oil) price shocks, and financing badly needed infrastructures.
Obidigwe however observed that Nigeria, with an estimated population of over 200 million, ranks 58 in SWF ranking which is four places lower than Angola – an oil-producing African country with a population of 32.87 million as of 2021 and has $3.2 billion in assets.
“Aware of this significant contrast to other oil producers such as Kuwait, which has $700 billion “Life After-Oil-Fund”, different from its $41.7 billion foreign reserves and Angola with $3.2 billion in assets both
as of March 202.
“Concerned that a country such as Kuwait with a population of 4.2 million people and projected growth of 5.3 million by 2050, has a future fund of $700 billion to cater for their future population whereas Nigeria with an approximate population of over 200 million and an estimated population growth of 401 million people by 2050 has a Future Generations Fund of only $2.5 billion”, he stated.
