Atedo Peterside, the founder of Stanbic IBTC and Anap Foundation, said President Bola Tinubu’s administration is doing many things right and also doing many things wrong.
The economist spoke during his appearance on Channels Television on Thursday, saying that the direction of Tinubu’s monetary policy is on the right track but what is on the wrong track is the huge fiscal indiscipline that comes from the top now and again.
“I will say that the direction of monetary policy is on the right track. The overall director of fiscal policy, trying to do away with unaffordable subsidies being thrown largely at the elite, is on the right track.
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“What is on the wrong track is the huge fiscal indiscipline from the top every now and again. You have to do everything right, it is not enough for the finance minister to do the right thing and the CBN governor to do the right thing and in the meantime we are playing politics, destroying what they are being done or what they are trying to correct,” Peterside said.
When asked about the things the government is doing wrong, the economist gave the example of the vehicles purchased for federal legislators.
He said in 2012, when the economy was booming, the government bought moderate Toyota cars for lawmakers. But now when the economy is bleeding, the government purchased expensive SUVs for them.
The economist also cited the federal government’s N90 billion Hajj subsidy, plan to renovate the presidential lodge in Lagos with billions of naira, flamboyant delegates to the UN General Assembly and COP28 Climate Summit in Dubai as the wrong decisions made by the current administrations.
