Hon. Rotimi Olowo, representing Shomolu Constituency 1 in the Lagos State House of Assembly, and chairman, Committee on Budget and Economic Planning, in this interview with TOPE MUSOWO, says he wants the federal government to wake up to its responsibility and focus more on capital projects, among other issues
It is now two years that the APC got into power at the federal level. How would you assess the government so far?
Yes, the expectation of the people was so high when we came to power and until you appreciate the fact that Nigeria almost collapsed when we came on board that is when you would be able to imagine what we have done. I still believe that the government at the centre needs to do more in the area of economy. I believe the federal government can still do a lot to get the economy stronger. We should not be where we are. Our economy should not be monolithic. We should have other sources of revenue rather than depending solely on oil. We should look at the extraction industry, mining and agriculture. We need to diversify our economy, we should be able to feed the nation and see how we can simulate the economy.
We should restructure the banking sector to make them do core banking business as against exploiting unassuming banking customers. What is the work of Urban Development Bank, what is the work of Federal Mortgage Bank and Bank of Industry. We have a lot of companies that cannot meet up with their installed capacity because of issues that bother on finance, cost of energy, infrastructure requirements including security. Here, most people depend on the government for employment, in developed nations, the economy is public-driven.
Any enterprise where government is directly involved, you would see a lot of leakages and inefficiency. There are some government agencies that do virtually the same thing and this leads to duplication of efforts. When we look at the structure of the government, it tends to spend more money on the recurrent than on capital projects. Nigeria cannot bounce back if we don’t invest in security, infrastructure and technology. We will just be going up today and going down tomorrow.
We have to give it to the Lagos State Government because they are doing a lot for the people. We need to empower the people of Nigeria, empower our industries and the security personnel. It should be an enduring security arrangement. A lot of Nigerians are in depression due to economic recession. We should generate employment and make funds available to Small and Medium Scale Enterpreneurs. We should make the banks do their core job of investment, not just sitting down and collecting money from people and giving out loans at 25% interest rate. We need to look at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), if the Governor of the bank is not doing well, let us replace him. I had expected a robust federal cabinet, I expect them to be up and doing. The President should be accessible; I was told that any minister who wants to see him has to go through the Secretary to the federal government first.
Would you encourage the federal government to borrow to get the economy back on track?
There is no offense in borrowing, but what you use the money for is important. You cannot borrow to pay salaries, you only borrow for capital projects that would bring the desired results. If we have infrastructure development, if all the roads are linked, if we have the desired power generation rather than 4,000 megawatts instead of about 50,000 megawatts that we need. If you borrow and you start generating 20,000 megawatts, that is a welcome development. When you borrow for infrastructure investment, capital investment and power generation, it is better. So, I don’t support borrowing if they are not for capital projects such as energy, building of refineries and others.
What roles do you think our legislature should play in our democracy?
There is no legislature that does not have its own challenges. But I just want our senators to be more alive to the welfare of the people. Issues that are mundane should be jettisoned. They should be more progressive, the United States of America or the United Kingdom would not wait for us. They should be role models, some of them are role models, while others are not. We should look at where we are coming from and where we are going. You can imagine that some African countries are doing better than Nigeria not to talk of foreign countries. We need to harness human capital, they should be more sober and attend to critical issues. They should be blunt where they need to be blunt. The three arms of government are not competing. They must be alive to the opinions of the public. We all read newspapers and go on social media. The executive also has its own blames, the President should bring the people that have the quality and qualifications to do what they are expected to do.
In what area would you say the Lagos State House of Assembly has been working to develop the state?
We have done this in many ways, even through the appropriation law. If we don’t approve the money for the government, how would they work? Whatever they are planning, they have to bring it to the house. You can see what the governor is doing, he is not a man of many words, but he is a man of action. Ojodu Berger Bridge is there, Ojota pedestrian bridge is there, Abule Egba Fly over is there, go to Badore, Ayobo and others, you would see massive infrastructure development. He does not joke with security because Lagos is the home of many people in Nigeria. You would see security men everywhere. The antidote for recession is to pump money into the economy. So, the governor has pumped money into the system by giving loans to small scale entrepreneurs at 5% interest rate. With this, a lot of people are able to go into business and we are getting there.
What do you think is wrong with our budgeting generally?
There is nothing wrong with our budgeting system, but a lot of things are associated with our budget such as federal transfer, statutory allocation and Value Added Tax (VAT). They are part of our projection. For instance, last year, the price of crude oil in the international market fell and our output dropped from 1.8 million litres per day to about 800,000 litres per day. So, that affected our income, our income from the federal government reduced. Also, we didn’t get much from VAT because people’s purchasing power dwindled. We are doing well on our projection as a state, but because of the federal income element, we couldn’t get much from them. I would like the federal government to achieve a lasting peace to the Niger Delta region, they should support the Niger Delta boys and find solution to their restiveness to increase our production output. Our budget did not perform above 80% in Lagos State in 2016 because of dwindling income from the federal government.
What have you not done for your people in Shomolu that you would like to do before 2019?
What I want to see done is the lighting up of our streets in Shomolu area. The state goverrnment is working in that area, but I want to complement that. I can provide generator for them to light up the streets to promote the economy of the area.
What makes 8th Lagos Assembly different from others?
The first, is that the Speaker is the youngest speaker in the state so far, also we sit early and we do our committee works effectively and perform our oversight functions with the executive. The Speaker has come up with bills and we have more private member bills in the assembly now unlike before, when almost all the bills were executive bills.
