Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige has warned that Nigeria may not have money to fund its capital projects in 2023 if the country fails to remove subsidies from petroleum products.
Other advice he gave was to cut down the cost of governance, among other economic measures.
The minister spoke at this year’s World Day Against Child Labour with the theme: Universal social protection to end Child Labour yesterday in Abuja.
Ngige made it clear that the country is broke.
He said: “Everybody in Nigeria should be patriotic to know that we are broke as a country. That is the truth of the matter. We must change our old ways, all of us.
“Without removal of oil subsidy, petroleum subsidy, we will have a zero capital budget for 2023. That is the truth of the matter.
“And without capital projects, it means that your economy will lie prostrate on the ground because it is the capital project expenditure that gingers our economy, that puts money directly into production. Every other money you put in recurrent is for consumption; it doesn’t create jobs.
“We need to create jobs with capital expenditure. These are ominous signs; they are red flags. We will have to assist the country and ourselves by asking ourselves: shall we continue to do what we are doing now?”
