Minister of Finance, Wale Edun, stated that the lack of economic reforms implemented by previous administrations is why Nigerians are facing challenges under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s reforms.
Edun made these remarks in Abuja on Friday during the launch of ‘Federal Civil Service Policies and Guidelines on Rewards’.
This comes as Nigerians continue to struggle with the economic repercussions of fuel subsidy removal and Naira devaluation in June of last year.
The policies resulted in fuel prices skyrocketing to over N1060 per litre from N234, and the Naira weakening to N1652 per dollar from N195.
Despite the difficulties faced by Nigerians as a result of these policies,Wale Edun emphasized that the pain was necessary due to the lack of implementation of reforms by past governments. He stated that the current reforms, although challenging, are yielding positive results.
“After 18 months of bold and necessary reforms that Mr. President has implemented, the country has changed, and yes, the reforms were so long overdue that it caused an element of pain, discomfort, difficulty, and increased cost of living. But the successes and the gains are coming through.
“Market-based pricing of foreign exchange was fully in place. The result was immediate benefit to the federal coffers, to the state coffers, and to the local government coffers because an amount of 5 percent of GDP is what goes to subsidies,” he said.
Meanwhile, the National Bureau of Statistics’ October 2024 headline and food inflation figures rose to 33.88 percent and 39.16 percent, respectively. This has weakened the purchasing power of many Nigerians
