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“The first thing to talk about is the historical context and where we started from in Nigeria. \u00a0High oil prices but not a lot to show for it in terms of conversion into growth and that\u2019s because of the structure of how Nigeria\u2019s government was spending money, 95% of which was on recurrence. \u00a0So we had a very large wage bill and quite a high debt service but very little left for capital projects. <\/span>It is the infrastructure that is needed to support true diversification. \u00a0For example the reason why we will import wheat instead of growing wheat is because the transport cost of moving wheat from the wheat areas to the markets is so prohibitively high that it is cheaper to import. <\/i><\/b>\u00a0\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n So fundamentally we were looking to restructure the economy. And of course we are restructuring the economy at a very difficult time in terms of revenue because the oil prices are very low. \u00a0It was very difficult for the people, they really felt the impact because there was so much dislocation but things have settled down quite nicely now. The oil price is a little bit more stable. \u00a0We have been able to quell the problems in the Niger delta. Now the impact of the 1.2 trillion capital that we have released in the last twelve months will begin to be felt. \u00a0Road projects are finishing, rail projects are moving, airports are being refurbished. You put the building blocks in place and then on the back of that we expect to see growth. With the work being done on ease of doing business we think the macro conditions are right, access to forex is available. That was a big problem in the past. <\/span>All the ingredients are now in place for growth. \u00a0And that\u2019s really when it begins to touch people\u2019s lives.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n Addressing the black economy is a big objective for us. \u00a0We have done a lot of work data gathering. Understanding who is in the tax net? \u00a0Who <\/span>should<\/span><\/i> be in the tax net? \u00a0Where are the gaps? \u00a0And that data has come from various sources, trawling through bank records, the BVM (Bank Verification Number), from bank accounts, from transfers. We have done a lot of work gathering data. We\u2019re about to start a really major initiative which will be announced in the forthcoming weeks but I\u2019m sure that by the time this interview is published it will be old news. <\/span>We really need to drive an increase in the number of tax players. At last record we have about 14 million active taxpayers in Nigeria out of an economically active population of about 70 million. That is a real, huge failure. \u00a0We have got to enroll people into the tax system.<\/b><\/p>\n I think the investment climate is getting better and the government has shown great intent. \u00a0We have shown that we are very serious in creating an enabling environment. Both in the ease of doing business, how easy it is to get things registered and fighting corruption. I think that for many foreign companies that I talk to, the biggest fear was the corruption. They would tell us \u201cour rules don\u2019t allow us to do brown envelopes. We can\u2019t do business in Nigeria.\u201d The fight against corruption which president Buhari has stood for is actually an economic fight. Not just in terms of preventing corruption and looting but also because it was a deterrent to investment. Now that is being corrected. \u00a0We are seeing those signs that companies are really looking at Nigeria as a market. <\/span>There has always been a compelling business case to come into Nigeria. \u00a0In the past it was easier to import and harder to manufacture. We want to reverse that. \u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n It is difficult to calculate the amount of stolen funds sitting in foreign banks. By their nature such funds are elusive. What\u2019s helping us is that internationally there is a lot of movement against illicit financial flows. There is a common reporting standard, the automatic exchange of information, the beneficial ownership record. These are helping the global economy to fight this and of course Nigeria is a beneficiary in terms of information flow. But we\u2019ve gone one step further. \u00a0We\u2019ve engaged one of the best known private investigation\/asset recovery firms in the world. \u00a0We have them now on retainer. We\u2019re looking at the flows, at where the money went. \u00a0We\u2019re determined to get the money that went out in the last administration. There is also a lot of money that went there in the last twenty years. There is money that went out under Abacha sitting in Swiss bank accounts. \u00a0It is not the professionals that are the problem. The problem is the will of those governments to do the right thing. I think there is self interest. \u00a0If for example we take the Abacha loot. 323 million dollars I believe, has been there for twenty years. They are not paying us any interest on it. \u00a0It is in their interest to slow the program down. I think <\/span>the problem with illicit financial flows for us in Africa is that when the money is going out nobody asks any questions. When it is time for the money to be returned they have a million questions. We just think that the game should be played fairly. <\/b>We\u2019re borrowing. \u00a0<\/span>I\u2019m issuing a EuroBond for a million, yet someone is sitting on 323 millions and they\u2019re giving me conditions on why it shouldn\u2019t return to Nigeria\u2019s people who are after all the owners of that money.<\/b><\/p>\n The numbers suggest that we are already on the cusp of an exit from crisis. \u00a0That suggests that Nigeria\u2019s economy can return to growth at an oil price that is lower than the trend of the last 5-6 years. That is a very solid platform for us to grow forward. I think that <\/span>the key change and the key intangible has been changing people\u2019s attitudes. Changing the types of things that people are looking to invest in. Now it\u2019s not all about oil. It\u2019s about agriculture, solid minerals, transportation, toll roads, yes we can!<\/b>\u00a0Nigeria is about more than oil. \u00a0Oil is just ten percent of our GDP yet the only story that anybody has really heard is oil. \u00a0You\u2019re going to start hearing about the rest of the economy.<\/span><\/p>\n The whistleblower act is going through the National Assembly at the moment. \u00a0On ghost workers there is enough law, the problem was process. \u00a0There is nowhere in the world where you need more laws for that. \u00a0It\u2019s about process and technology. \u00a0We have used technology extensively to really clean up our payroll. \u00a0Using biometric technology to identify duplicates and triplicates. \u00a0The message is getting through. \u00a0That game is over. \u00a0When the systems are manual, you cannot control this problem.<\/span><\/p>\n The strong pillar of the economy apart from Agric is really going to be the youth. \u00a0That\u2019s really our biggest asset.<\/b>\u00a0We are doing a lot to try and enable them to really come into the market place and come into the commercial space. We are doing a lot of work on that and I think it is going to be the strongest. Around technology, entertainment, youth in agriculture, youth in business…it\u2019s going to be the young people coming through. It think that is going to be the big structural change. For us 2018 is going to be a stronger growth year. Nigeria will begin to show what it has the potential to do.<\/span><\/p>\n Nigerians abroad should return. Nigeria has energy and dynamism. It is almost tangible, you can feel it. You can do anything in Nigeria!<\/i><\/b> I think that is going to become a very attractive investment destination again. <\/span>You can\u2019t ignore it. There are better reasons than ever to have a good look at Nigeria. It has changed, we\u2019re fighting the corruption, we\u2019re making ease of doing business better, we\u2019re addressing the infrastructure challenges.<\/b> \u00a0Come on!”<\/span><\/p>\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “The first thing to talk about is the historical context and where we started from in Nigeria. \u00a0High oil prices…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":367,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4055","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-interviews"},"menu_order":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ctproductions.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ctproductions.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ctproductions.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ctproductions.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ctproductions.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4055"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ctproductions.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4055\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6252,"href":"https:\/\/ctproductions.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4055\/revisions\/6252"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ctproductions.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ctproductions.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ctproductions.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ctproductions.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n(Excerpts from an interview the minister kindly gave to CT Productions in 2017 for the World in 2018, “Investing in Nigeria” Feature. We have omitted the questions and a few passages and apologize in advance for potential mistakes in the interview transcription from audio.)<\/em><\/h5>\n