Soludo’s finance commissioner is a financial illiterate — By Jones Fcc Onwuasoanya
3 min read
Governor Chukwuma Soludo
One of the reasons some of us were excited with Soludo’s emergence as the governor of Anambra State is because of his background as an economist. We expected that he would bring his wealth of experience in the classroom and at various levels of government, including, as Nigeria’s Chief Banker, to bear in reviving and strengthening Anambra’s economy. But, with the kind of illiterate he appointed as a Finance Commissioner, we might as well have overrated him and expected too much from him.
How do you explain a situation where a supposed expert in finance shamelessly tells you that the value of an investment made over eight years ago is determined by the current exchange value of the exact amount invested? One does not need to be an economist or an expert in finance to know that it is only a fraudster who would give out such silly analysis.
Peter Obi bought a share, and a share is an investment, that is expected to yield returns. He did not drop money off on the cashier’s table of Intafact or whoever is the succeeding company. He invested funds, which have been yielding dividends. If Soludo’s finance commissioner passed his Economics at SSCE level, he should have kept mute over this than coming out to advertise his illiteracy with relish.
The Anambra State government is expected to tell Nigerians how much they have drawn from that investment and how much that share value is, currently.
We are not asking for the exchange value of the particular amount of money invested, but the current value of the investment.
To break it down for some of us who may not understand these things.
This is like when a trader uses one Million Naira to open a shop where he sells, let’s say, liquor. Eight to nine years after that investment has been made, it will be mischievous to tell us that because One million Naira in 2014, is equivalent of say 10,000 dollars, but by current exchange rate, that one Million Naira is about 2000 Naira, therefore, the value of that trader’s business is now 2000 Dollars.
It is commonsensical to know that the trader’s business might have grown from a One million Naira initial capital to even a billion Naira.
Also, Peter Obi invested that money in dollars, and the investment will be measured by the current value of the dollar against Naira and not in Naira.
Therefore, if going by Mr. Commissioner’s disgraceful analysis, the dollar has risen in value, and assuming Peter Obi put that money there for it to be returned to the State government without any interest, it then means that we will be expecting the current value of “14,000,000” dollars in current exchange rate of the dollar, which could give us well over 100,000,000 dollars because the value of the dollar has appreciated by over 100% since 2014.
Professor Soludo’s Commissioner is apparently thinking in the line of those who stash money away in Ghana Must Go bags and bury it inside some cesspits or other underground channels. That’s the only way 14,000,000 dollars will still remain 14,000,000 dollars after eight years, but definitely, it will be impossible for that amount to be what it was in Naira value as at 2014.
So, if you actually had 14,000,000 dollars in 2014 and buried it inside one pit like Mr. Soludo’s Commissioner’s strange economics suggests, you will be given the prevailing Naira equivalent of that sum today, and not the 2014 value.
Please, let’s stop putting id*iots in government positions. Let’s retake our nation from these dull heads.
