 Welcome back. It's still the breakfast and plus if you have care. The World Bank is rich in Nigeria. To urgently strengthen its fiscal management, create a unified, stable, market-based exchange rate and it's reiterated the need for the country to face out what it described as quote, its costly regressive fuel subsidy. Now, it also advised the country to quickly rationalize preferential trade restrictions and tax exemptions. The banks group President David Mopas gave the admonition while commenting on a new Nigeria public finance review report released yesterday in Abuja. Mopas said quote, Nigeria's government urgently needs to strengthen fiscal management, create a unified, stable, market-based exchange rate, face out its costly regressive fuel subsidy and rationalize preferential trade restrictions and tax exemptions. They said quote, this will lay the groundwork for the increase in public revenues or increases in public revenues and spending needed to improve development outcomes. He also said decisive moves will significantly improve the business-enabling environment in Nigeria, attract foreign direct investment and reduce inflation and he's saying the World Bank is ready to increase support to Nigeria as it designs and implements these critical reforms. O'KuKu is an investment and economic development expert. He's a guest tonight, this morning rather. Good morning to you, Mr. O'KuKu. Thank you very much for your time. Yes, good morning. Thank you for having me. Now, listening to the head of the World Bank, what comes to mind in the way I see it is an adult telling an adult who's refused to grow up what to do. You need to wear your eye on your shirt. You need to wash your clothes. You need to sweep your room. You need to pay your tax. You need to brush your teeth. You need to have your bath. All these things that you expect it to do at a particular age and do them well, it seems like an adult telling a fellow adult what to do. Nigeria has refused to grow up. What do you say to these admonitions by the World Bank? I mean, it's been long coming. I mean, the World Bank has always, the IMF, the World Bank, other international development partners have always said to Nigeria, there are certain things you cannot continue to do. And then experts within the nation have also tried to admonish the fiscal management team of the government to say there are things we cannot continue to do. We have to look at more creative ways to begin to manage our resources. And it brings me to what we call an economic development. We call it a public value proposition. Now, it's a concept where people who are supposed to manage public offices understand their responsibilities and then wave side by side with the outcome of their policies and their management skills to see if they will be able to give public value to those, you know, with those government resources, be it government office or be it funds, if they will be able to use, utilize those funds or their responsibilities to actually give a better life for the people. So the reality is still staying at us and, you know, in our faces, are we going to have the public, you know, are we going to have the political will to take the right decisions to bring our people out of poverty or are we going to continue to, you know, behave the same way and expect the different results which everybody knows that it is the first form of being insane. So these things are just things that keep, you know, staying at us and then decisions have to be taken and then the people are not willing to take the decisions. So you need to ask yourself, are there things that they are looking at or they are seeing that we are not seeing. So the reality keeps staring at us and then these changes have to happen. So if they decide to fight, if they don't, then the people have to actually begin to cry out, say, please take us to where we ought to be because this economy has to be managed properly. All right. You know, I'm sounding like a, you know, a broken record. I'm sure we'll be bored when I keep talking about the financial management of the country and even the minister of finance, budget and national planning. When the head of the World Bank, the group president, David Malpas, says, quote, Nigeria's government needs to, or urgently, rather urgently needs to strengthen fiscal management. What does that mean? What do you think he's driving at? What is, you know, simply trying to say, Nigerian government urgently needs to first of all think of a more creative way to, you know, manage the subsidy regime, which is actually not helping us grow our economy. Now the government needs to become a bit more sensitive when it comes to decisions on how expenditures are done at the level of government. So we need to streamline, become more efficient in how we spend money. Now it is, this might sound a little trivial, you see, in a country where we're talking about no money, we don't have enough revenue, we don't have enough income as a nation, you're still seeing agencies of government buying cars, work over a hundred million a year. You're asking yourself, is it that these people are not in touch with reality? So when you're talking about physical discipline is the ability of people taking charge and making sure there are things that should not appear on the budget, even from those who, because the fiscal managers, the legislators are also fiscal managers, they need to also scrutinize some of this budget and say, come, there are things we can't be buying, we can't be buying long street cars at this time, whether we like it or not, there are things we should just step down on. Like I said, this does a bit trivial because I mean, if you look at it in percentage to what the budget says, but I mean, it is, if you accumulate them it begins to show, it begins to actually amount to a whole lot. So the reality is still facing us, that is where I am coming to. Now the second thing is, what have we done to see how we can show up our revenue, our revenue bucket? Look at the entire ecosystem, have we increased our revenue? If oil price goes down today, what else can we do? Now it is so painful that we are still talking about tax to GDP at less than 10% as a nation. No country succeeds, no country succeeds, I keep saying it, no country succeeds by, you know, planning their budget around rents from natural resources. No, you plan your budget based on income, taxes, you know, transactions, so invest rightly. What are the things we need to do to see how we can, you know, increase our tax net at the nation? What are the things we need to do? Then the third thing, you know, we have to also consider here is, you know, after you looked at, you know, the fiscal discipline as by expenditure, the income, so are there things, are there lifelines that we are taking, that we are not taking advantage of? I always say this, until you begin to take advantage of lifelines, because anything that is a problem is an income generation pipe for any nation. If security is a problem, how are we not making money from security? If people are lawless, why are we not making income from lawlessness of people? So I mean, in this, we need to be a bit more creative. We need to sit down and ask ourselves or come up with a development plan that everybody must adhere to, to see how, you know, to increase our income streams as a nation. We are not doing what it comes to income generation, because that's why we keep borrowing and then we are not able to service those nodes, because our income has not increased at the nation. You know, this issue of fiscal management with the World Bank group managing director or the group of president, Marpas has said is to me is very important, because I keep asking, you know, what the role of the minister of finance is. Why I'm saying this is because we're seeing if you conduct a fiscal health check on the country, you see that the country is very sick, fiscally, you know, let's talk about the monetary side, we'll look at that soon. But on fiscal side, you can see that you will see the country, you can tell the country is sick. You look at the budget and how much it's going to take to service the budget in terms of loans. I remember the day, the exact day Nigeria crossed the line into having a deficit budget. Now it's almost like a normal thing. In times past, you would have seen certain goes to Conjualwala or maybe a cameo at the ocean or some other person saying, okay, we have a problem. We need to do XYZ. We can't continue like this. We have to take this method. We have to do this. But in this current dispensation, what we're seeing is it's just about announcing how much is being borrowed, how much is being spent, how much is will be taxed to Nigerians, how much is being spent. And it's almost like the only strategy of the government is to borrow more, spend more, tax more, spend more. What can you say about this? Now let me start by saying that there will be, I won't be doing justice conversation if I look at, you know, compare Conjualwala as minister of finance in Nigeria with this present minister. Now because one, Conjualwala, understanding the concept of economic development, you know, had an understanding of the structure of the nation. So when she took the job, she made sure that they added a candidate to her portfolio, which is the manager of the economy. So she was not just the minister of finance, but also the economic manager of the nation. Now what that simply implies is understanding the structure of this nation, that you need a whole lot of things. So there are a lot of things that in the wheel of development that have to work together for you to be able to grow an economy. So this particular minister is just the minister of finance and national planning. So she brings out a plan, which if the minister of agriculture refuses to listen to her, nothing happens and nothing will happen because the minister of agriculture, as an example, has access to the president as much as she does. So at this point in time, the next person to actually, the next question to ask, so who is the coordinator of the economy? So which brings me to the office of the vice president because this particular minister is not the coordinator of the economy. So that is the disparity here. O'Connor-Iwala was the manager of the economy during a good long time, or during a bad time, when she was in government. But this one is not. She's just there to manage. So she's like a ledger keeper. We are getting, we are expending. So that's what she's. So she's not bringing up concept. So at this point in time, it takes me to the economic economic management team being headed by the vice office of the vice president. So the reality is the question should go to the vice president of it. So what are we doing? So this concept should be coming from the office of the vice president so that we will know someone who will be able to tell the minister of education what to do. Because if we have a plan, a national plan to grow our economy based on intellectual property, so there has to be a group mechanism that will come from intelligence, you know, from people, from education. There has to be a plan. So if we're trying to industrialize, we're not looking at the raw material supply strategy, which will come from agriculture or any other sector or the petroleum industry. So it's a huge disparity here. So it would be good for us to have this conversation properly and then ask the right people the right question. So we need to be able to manage of the economy. We're talking about the vice president who has been, I mean, not talking about this vice president in particular, but the office of the vice president, which has been described as a spare tire. As far as governance in Nigeria is concerned, I mean, do we expect anything to be able to be done? But I still, I insist that the minister of finance has a role to play because even as a ledger keeper, if you want to call her, she's an accountant by training and by qualification and used to have a role. For instance, Farouk, the minister of humanitarian affairs, as one of the ministry I can't, I don't understand because we have a national emergency, emergency emergency, but that's another issue for another day. The minister of finance says humanitarian affairs goes to the national assembly since before the committee, the Senate committee on specialities and can't explain a certain 206 billion error in her ministry's budget. And he's saying that she has to go ask Zainab Ahmed, the minister of finance, so she can explain what that means so she'll come back to the national assembly. I mean, it's a mess really. I mean, who went to, is it the World Bank or IMEF recently to ask for more loans along with the media field? It wasn't minister of finance, it's on the vice president. So what are we saying? So that's something. I think there's this thing that I'm not adding up. I understand where you're coming from. But I said if you isolate her, that's my point. If you isolate her in the conversation, it will not be, it won't be doing justice to our office. So we need to all bring everybody together. The office of the vice president, who's supposed to be constitutionally supposed to be the coordinator of the economy, because he oversees the economic management team of every administration. So he also comes to, you know, comes to the fore when, you know, so it all depends on the management style that each administration, you know, desires to, you know, to use to run the economy. So I mean, the economic advisor to the president will tell you, you know, there are seven officials that they have to take that they know they have to take. They have an advising government. I mean, if they have an advising government, let's see how we can get out of this subsidy issue. And then the minister of finance will still be working on how if we can't pay subsidy. So, you know, so there's a lot of things that are not added up. So I'm also with you, but I mean, it also brings us to the fact that, you know, like the World Bank saying, you see, these are the things that deter investors. They don't want to come to business and wear their uncertainties. So there has to be, you know, that coherent management system, which was what Konjai Wala's economic management style brought. And if you remember, you know, just to put this further on my point, when she came doing her best in just time, she was not the coordinating minister of the economy. But when she came doing good luck, so she knew she needed to be the coordinator, so they had to add that responsibility to her. Very quickly. Yeah, very quickly. Marbus is also saying, the World Bank is saying Nigerian, it's a unified and stable market-based exchange rate. I mean, is this feasible? I mean, some people like me wonder, you know, who controls the black market? Who determines how the man in Sokoto and the man in Porakoto will be selling black market at the same rate on the same day? You know, it doesn't seem to be as black market as it sounds. But they want Nigeria to have one exchange rate, which is what happens in the normal world. Is this possible? It is highly impossible, but it's workable. When I say it's impossible and it's workable, it's we need to, because I mean, it's the aftermath, you see, if we allow the market force to determine the exchange rate, yes, that is what is supposed to be. Now, you see, the inflation that will hit us, it's not gonna be able, we can't manage it. If we did this long before now, yes, of course, it might actually have paid off or been a lot better, but we'll try it at this point in time. I can tell you, we'll tell you that dollar might hit as much as 1,000 a year. This is very simple, they are very simple things. We don't print dollar, we only add dollar. So what are the things that we are doing? So our export corridor, what have we done to see how we can exchange resources, exchange intellectual property to gain a lot of inflow effects. So we're not doing so much. So it comes back to us depending on oil rent for everything. So it becomes a bit difficult. So I don't know how we're gonna be able to achieve that. And then it brings to the front bonnet that the next government, they have a lot of work to do. So everybody needs to be a bit smacked on taking their decision on who should manage your economy at this point in time. All right, the bare mouth of fuel subsidy in a discussion, the debate refuses to go away. He's asking for, he calls it a retrogressive policy called a fuel subsidy. Indeed, in that Nigeria public finance review report released by the World Bank, they said that only 3% of poor people in Nigeria benefit only 3% from the fuel subsidy while the wealthy in Nigeria benefit more from petrol subsidies. And they want that face up, very quickly your thoughts on that. Now it is very simple, until you have a very creative way of distributing incentives, it will be, the bigger fish will eat always, just like you bring in dogs together and then you bring lions in a place and then you throw meat there. The bigger lions will actually overpower orders and then it's like an animal kingdom. So pretty, see that's what I'm talking about public value, proposition, the ability for any person in government to know that I need to manage streamlined ideas to be able to creatively distribute wealth. So it's called with the distribution of wealth. Now, if a man who owns 10 cars falls in car and a man who has no car is still, one is taking from him to give the man who has 10 cars, excuse me, you have not solved any problem. So we have to have a structured, well creative world. Yes, we can take our subsidy, but the subsidy can be targeted. You can actually not distribute a lot of money, no, no. There are things you can do, you can isolate public transports, using AI, using things like Google math to actually give those subsidies or fuel subsidies to transport companies. And that also helps in taxation. It helps you build a database where you know those who fly between Adama what to say, you know how much you know the distance so you know where they can get the fuel from. So these things that can be worked out but just that the laziness of people who you know, public office managers don't want to be critical in their thinking to see or even great experts who know what to do to actually help them design an incentive policy that will actually get to the point. The issues are many, I don't know, it's just like everything is just, you know, in a confusing way, model up as far as the economy, the fiscal asset of things in the country are concerned. We don't know what to expect, but let's see how things go. I mean, yesterday I bought a loaf of bread for 1,000 Naira, I think you understand where I'm coming. So the inflation you talked about is already going away, I don't know what to call it, galloping, inflation or what to call it. But anyway, thank you very much for your time. Oguonakoku, investment and economic development expert, we appreciate and I've really enjoyed your submission this morning. All right, thank you so much, thanks for having me. All right, thank you very much. I don't know how much you listening or watching this morning bought a loaf of bread the last time but that's where we are at the country right now. We will turn to more with more on the breakfast, please follow us on social media and on YouTube at Plus TV Africa. And also we have a second YouTube account Plus TV Africa lifestyle. You can check it out on the internet as well with a website, just do a Google search and it'll lead you there. My name is Kofi Bartels on behalf of the entire team. Thank you very much for your time. The news at nine is up next.