By Zayamu Hassan
The Federal Government of Nigeria has disclosed that the country had spent over N1.5 trillion in managing the effects of COVID-19.
Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Shamsuna Ahmed, disclosed this at a media briefing in Abuja, on Tuesday.
Mrs Zainab said that the recent report of the second quarter (Q2) 2021 Gross Domestic Product (GDP) report released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), was a pointer that business and commercial activities had fully returned to pre-pandemic level.
She, however, predicted that if necessary economic measures and policies were put in place and sectors, such as agriculture, were improved upon, the economy would maintain a five per cent growth rate in the third quarter (Q3) of the year.
The Finance Minister, however, said that trade, transportation, coal mining, metal Ores, and insurance recorded double-digit growth.
“The report, however, also indicate that some activities, such as oil refining, crude petroleum, and natural gas production, as well as financial services, recorded negative quarterly growth.
“Overall, a total of 42 out of 46 economic activities expanded during the quarter, compared to only 13 at the same time last year, while 37 activities performed better than they did last quarter (Q 1),” she said.
She noted that the non-oil sector was a major driver of growth during the quarter, recording a growth rate of nearly seven per cent.
“When these estimates are considered along with declining inflation rate, which slowed from 18.17 per cent at the end of Q1 to 17.75 per cent at the end of Q2, and as at July, which stands at 17.38 per cent, it is clear that the economic recovery is gradually picking up steam,” she explained.
On the growing domestic and external borrowings, the minister maintained that the federal government was borrowing responsibly, insisting, “if we don’t invest now, we will regret it later.”
Speaking at the occasion, the Statistician-General of Federation, Dr Simon Harry, said the federal government only needed to improve and sustain its revenue drive.
According to him, the current development and the improvement of funding of the 2021 budget, is an indicator that the third quarter of the year is going to record a tremendous success.
“In managing an economy, you don’t expect magic if there is no adequate funding of the economy. So far so good, this year has been recording timely releases of budgetary allocations for all MDAs and we expect that to have multiplier effects on other sectors of the economy.
“So, what we need to do to encourage this is to look at other sectors that are not performing; for instance, in Q2, agriculture performance was not encouraging.
“But with improvement in funding, we are hoping that agriculture and other sectors under it will improve. Overall, we are expecting that by end of the year, the economy will able to grow above five per cent,” he said.
