Nigeria is not broke.

The Minister of Finance Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala yesterday, reassured the  public that Nigeria is financially sound and has been meeting its local and international financial obligations despite dwindling revenues from crude oil exports. 

The minister, who gave the assurance at a crowded press conference in Abuja, said:  “Despite the dwindling revenue of the nation due to falling crude oil prices and decrease in output, the nation is not broke, as feared in some quarters”.

There have been concerns that the consistent fall in accruals to the federation account in recent months could jeopardize implementation of the 2014 budget but, the minister said in Abuja that contingency plans were being put in place to forestall any immediate adverse effect on the budget.

“Nigeria is a country that is dependent on one commodity (oil) and that commodity is dependent on how much the buyers want to  buy. We had a yo-yo kind of expenditure pattern before 2003 but after that even when there was a fall in the price of crude from $140 to about $35 or $38 between 2003 and 2008, our economy remained stable because we had accumulated about $22 billion in the Excess Crude Account.Okonjo-Iweala

“It is the same thing now.  We may have to cut down on some of our expenditure. We may have to mobilize more revenue; we have to look at the fiscal policy; we have to look at the monetary policy — all of these have to come together and we are looking at them right now in the Ministry of Finance.