The immediate past Governor of Niger state, Dr Muazu Babangida Aliyu, has defended the inability of the last administration at the federal level to save part of its income in the boom era for the rainy day, saying the government was handicapped by the 1999 Constitution.
He said what the constitution provided
for was for all amounts of money generated to be put in the federation
account and shared among the three tiers of government.
“The Constitution did not say we should
save anything; what the Constitution says is that we should generate and
share. It will be illegal for us to say we want to save; the law does
not allow it,” Aliyu explained.
He made the remarks in Minna, Niger
State, on Saturday when he served as the chairman at the second edition
of the NDEDI Annual lecture series which had as its theme, “The
Emergence of the Current Economic Realities : Expectations on the part
of government and the private sector”.
However, the former governor said he and
some of his colleagues were convinced at the time of the need to keep
some money aside for eventuality, which brought about the establishment
of the Sovereign Wealth Fund.
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