•Says ‘we need to sell off some of our assets’
Business mogul Aliko Dangote believes a wave of
asset selling by the government could be the saving
grace for Nigeria in the face of the current economic
recession.
“I think the real challenge for us is now for us to have
the political will in terms of selling some assets,” he
told the Consumer News and Business Channels
(CNBC) Africa yesterday.

“I think it’s an easier route than the IMF (International
Monetary Fund) or the World Bank to borrow money,
because what you need to do is actually to beef up
the reserves.”
Dangote spoke before Nigeria’s credit rating was
downgraded to B from B+ by S&P Global Ratings
yesterday.


He urged the government to sell assets in some of its
joint ventures with the private sector in an open
tender process.
He said that Africa Finance Corporation – a
development finance institution established in 2007 –
would fetch close to $800 million while government s
should also look to sell 100 percent of the country’s
stake in Nigeria LNG Limited.

“If I had challenges in my company, I would not
hesitate to sell assets, to remain afloat, to get to the
better times, because it doesn’t make any sense for
me to keep any assets and then suffocate the whole
organization,” Dangote said.
S & P branded the economy “weakened more than we
expected owing to a marked contraction in oil
production, a restrictive foreign exchange regime
and delayed fiscal stimulus.”
The economy is set to contract on an annual basis in
2016 for the first time in 21 years, with its all-
important oil industry suffering under weak global
prices.

The gross domestic product (GDP) dropped by 2.06
percent in the second quarter of 2016, after falling
0.36 percent in the previous three months.
Dangote said the economy should have been
diversified a long time ago, lamenting the
overreliance on oil.
But he was optimistic that Nigeria would exit
recession by the last quarter of the year and said
the country “has all the answers” to bounce back to
health.

Culled from Gistthemedia