The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of Economy, Wale Edun, has said that the N22.7tn printed by the Central Bank of Nigeria through Ways and Means overdraft for the Federal Government of Nigeria from 2015 to 2023, under former President Muhammadu Buhari landed Nigeria into hyperinflation bedeviling it now.
Edun who disclosed this on Wednesday during an interface with the Senate Committee on Finance, said during the period, the printing of naira in trillions was carried out without matching it with productivity.
He said the consequence of the eight years of printing money without productivity is high inflation confronting the country now.
Two weeks ago, the Senate resolved to probe the N30tn Ways and Means spent by the Buhari-led Federal Government, which, according to it, was recklessly spent.
It further stated that reckless spending of the overdraft collected from the Central Bank of Nigeria under Godwin Emefiele largely accounted for the food and security crises the country is facing.
The Red Chamber then resolved to set up an Ad -hoc committee, to investigate on what and what the N30tn Ways and Means were spent on by the immediate past government since details of such spending, were deliberately not made available to the National Assembly.
At the Wednesday session, Wale Edun said, “We talked about inflation, and you have helped to solve that. Where has it come from?
“It came from eight years of just printing money not matched by productivity. It’s not like when you earn dollars, and you free the naira alongside it, although there’s even a better way than that. But that’s still not as bad.
“It’s not as if the money is matched by productivity increase in output. It is not. And what happened was that for eight years, the weak were left to their own devices. It is the privileged few that took everything. That’s the reality so that money supply must be brought back.”
