Business
Recession: Don Tasks FG On Palliative Measures
University teacher, Dr Aminu Usman, has advised the Federal Government to come up with palliative measures as promised to cushion the sufferings being witnessed by Nigerians due to the recession.
Usman, a lecturer in the Department of Economics, Kaduna State University, gave the advice in an interview with newsmen in Abuja on Wednesday.
He said such measures would help to cushion the effect of recession on the poor citizens.
The Federal Government had promised to directly impact on the lives of more than eight million Nigerians in its social investment scheme.
The social investment scheme is meant to provide succour as well as a ready-made palliative to ordinary Nigerians.
The scheme, among others, includes plans to embark on the direct payment of N5,000 monthly stipend to one million extremely poor Nigerians.
”The N5,000 will not do anything, but if we have so many people collecting it, some people will have one or two weeks of improvement in the quality of their lives.
”The government should understand that people want their quality of life to improve and if that is done, they don’t mind who is ruling them.’’
Usman said that there was the need for the government to review the salaries of workers.
He said that salaries would not go anywhere with the present economic recession.
”Look at what is happening now, if you have children in schools and once it is mid semester, you will begin to panic maybe you have not finished paying last semester school fees.
”The salary you are earning in the past two years is the same salary you are earning and everything has doubled in price, the income remains stagnant.
”The biggest challenge is the economy, people don’t care who is leading them so far as they have food on their table. They are fine.
“Some of these things happening now deter economic analysis, why should cooking oil be out of the reach of a common man? The price is twice more than that of vegetable oil,’’ Usman said.
The don, who commended the Federal Government on the Treasury Single Account (TSA) policy, however, said that the policy had constrained the ability of Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) to implement projects.