The National Leader of the All
Progressives Congress, APC, Senator Bola Tinubu, has proposed a seven-point
agenda that would revive Nigeria’s troubled economy.
The APC chieftain also said the
measures would drastically reduces her dependence on petrodollars.
According to Tinubu, the
development of a national infrastructure plan; the return of commodity exchange
boards and the promotion of government-backed housing programmes were important
measures that could help to reposition the national economy.
The seven-point agenda was part
of a recent lecture the APC leader delivered in Lagos, where he said the
decline in oil prices had revealed the travesty of the country’s extant
economic model.
He said, “We must realise that no
populous nation has ever attained broadly- shared prosperity without first
creating an industrial capacity that employs large numbers of people and
manufactures a significant quantity of goods for domestic consumption or
export.”
According to the former Lagos
State governor, America and China had implemented policies to protect key industries,
employment and encourage exports.
He added, “A strong common thread
is their policies of buffering strategic industries in ways that allow for the
expansion and growth of the overall economy.
“So, we must press forward with a
national industrial policy fostering the development of strategic industries
that create jobs as well as spur further economic growth.
“Whether we decide to focus
attention on steel, textiles, cars, machinery components, or other items, we
must focus on manufacturing things that Nigerians and the rest of the world
value and want to buy. We must partially reshape the market place to accomplish
this.
“A national economy cannot grow
beyond the capacity of the infrastructure that serves it. Good infrastructure
yields a prospering economy. Weak infrastructure relegates the economy to the
poorhouse. The government must take the lead.
“The focus on infrastructure has
important corollary benefit. Federal expenditure for needed infrastructural
spending has empirically proven in every place and in every era to boost
recessionary economies and provide employment when sorely needed.
“Deficit spending in our own
currency to advance this mission is neither a luxury nor a mistake. It is a
fulcrum of and balanced and shared prosperity. We must overcome the economic,
political and bureaucratic bottlenecks preventing us from achieving reliable
electrical power.
“The hurdles we face are not
technical in nature. We must convince those political and economic factors
currently impeding our quest for reliable power to step aside so that we may
obtain this critical ingredient to economic vitality,” he pleaded.
“The long-term economic strength
of the nation is dependent on how we deploy idle men, material and machines
into productive endeavor. And this is highly dependent on the interest rate.
“The normal profit rates in most
business sectors cannot support the burden imposed by current interest rates.
If our industrialists do not invest in more plants, equipment and jobs, the
economy will stagnate. The banking system would have achieved its goal of
low-interest rates at the greater costs of economic growth.
“Consumer credit must be more
accessible to the average person. The prevailing norm is for a person to
purchase high -priced items such as a car in one lump sum. This is oppressive.
It defeats the average person and constrains transactions in real estate,
vehicles and appliances that could vitalize the economy.
“They need to provide longer-term
mortgages with manageable interest rates. The government should provide the
supporting guarantees to make such financing a reality. By sparking the
effective demand for housing, the overall economy is enhanced. The construction
sector and the industries allied to it will surge.
“Though effective, this policy
was shunned because it conflicted with the free market totems that we were
asked to erect against our own interests. We must return to commodity exchange
boards, which will allow farmers to secure good prices and hedge against loss.
“An agricultural mortgage loan
corporation should be inaugurated to further promote these goals. The proposals
stated above are largely within the province of the federal government.
Focusing on these and other such things will keep the federal government
sufficiently busy.”
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