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Sanusi under Attack from Reps

By on November 30, 2012

Mallam Lamido Sanusi

 

Just 48 hours ago the CBN boss Governor Lamido Sanusi was castigated by the Nigeria Labour Congress NLC over his economic revival strategy, which, involves sacking 50 per cent of civil servants. Yesterday the House of Representatives joined NLC, the Trade Union Congress (TUC) and others to chastise him even more.

In his economic revival tactic, the CBN boss also called for a cut in the expenditure of executive and legislative arms of government to free more cash for development, adding that the number of lawmakers be reduced.

He made his position on the economy known while speaking at a seminar in Warri on Tuesday. He also decried the waste of 70 per cent of the country’s resources on salaries and emoluments.

The House of Representatives yesterday joined forces with the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), the Trade Union Congress (TUC) and others to reprimand Sanusi.

House Committee on Media and Public Affairs Deputy Chair Victor Ogene illustrated Sanusi’s comment as a mark of his partiality for political confusion and “stirring up storms in tea cups.”

However, the CBN defended the governor, saying he was quoted out of context. The CBN Deputy Governor (Operations) Mr. Tunde Lemo told the House of Representatives Committee on Banking and Currency that what Sanusi meant was that “If resources are freed up to remove structural rigidities such that would permit employment to flow in the private sector there would have been no need to cluster employment in government.”

If this is done, Lemo maintained, “Everybody will not be clamouring for government jobs.” He added, “Big government hurts economies all over the world.”

Sanusi, two years ago, alleged that the National Assembly’s overhead is 25 per cent of the overhead in the Federal Government budget.

The CBN Governor supported his statements with figures, saying, “I have figures from the office of budget for the year 2010. Total government overhead is N536, 268, 49, 280. Total overhead of the National Assembly is N136, 259,768, 112, which is exactly 25.1 per cent of Federal Government overhead. The overhead of the National Assembly as a percentage of the Federal Government budget in 2009 was 19. 87 and in 2008 was 14.19.”

Ogene said Sanusi was gratuitously causing confusion, adding that Sanusi’s economic strategies have not achieved much since he took over office.

“In my opening remarks, I did not want to talk about the statement on the National Assembly by the CBN Governor because I do not know how to respond to him. However, sometimes, I begin to wonder whether this CBN Governor is a political economist, with bias for political turbulence.

“We are of the view that he (the CBN Governor) has not been able to pull through on any of his policies, from the policy on N5, 000 note to similar claims of profligacy in government. He has never pushed forward any of his proposed reforms.

“But back to the issue; what is even the budget of the National Assembly that he will be calling for their reduction to save cost? What is even the budget of the National Assembly for 2012? N150 billion and here is a man whose organisation has a profile of over N300 billion spent and is not ready to put this before the Nigerian people to show transparency and accountability.

“Yes, he talks about the CBN Act, but you know that any Act that is inconsistent with the constitution remains inferior to the extent of the inconsistency. So, the Central Bank is not superior to the constitution which requires that every MDA must have its budget cleared by the National Assembly.”

According to the lawmaker, the personnel of the CBN have risen considerably by over a 1000 since Sanusi took over the CBN in 2009.

“As at today, the staff strength of the CBN stands at 6015 employees. When Sanusi came on board in June 2009, the staff strength of the CBN was 5022 people. So if within three years, instead of pruning down since we are talking about reducing the cost of governance, he has employed about 1000 people,” he said.

The lawmaker said Sanusi should proffer solutions to curing the economy “rather than continue to cause acrimony in the system.”

Ironically, Sanusi was supported by the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC).

National Publicity Secretary of the CPC Rotimi Fashakin in a statement said, “The CPC has noted the recent call for the sack of the CBN governor by the Labour leaders over his recent commentary on the unacceptable 70% of the budget that is perennially spent on recurrent as against the paltry 30% used for improvement of the nation’s Infrastructure.

“Whilst we do not agree that the cause of the exorbitant recurrent expenditure is wholly due to the size of the public service work-force and that the sacking of half its size is the solution to the identified problem, we believe the call for the sacking of the forthright Public officer for volunteering his personal opinion is equally preposterous. It is our belief that the fiscal indiscipline of this Jonathan-led administration has exacerbated the nation’s malaise.

“We equally believe that rather than vilifying the CBN governor for the commentary, this should throw up meaningful discourse on extricating the nation from the financial recklessness of this PDP-led Federal Government.

“As a party, we have equally taken note of the ignominious manner this present crop of Labour leadership truncated, in January 2012, the people’s popular refusal to yield to the exploitative tendencies of the nation’s rulers.

“In the course of scuttling the people’s revolt, some of these Labour leaders got appointed into some dodgy committees that were not primed to achieve result. This is why we view this call by the Labour leaders for Sanusi’s sack as a cheap, opportunistic ploy to crawl back to the people’s reckoning.

We believe that responsible leadership is about selflessness and consistency. We advise the Nation’s Labour leaders to critically examine the policies of governments (Federal and State) that impinge on the well-being of the people instead of looking for scape-goat for cheap publicity.”