Chairman of the Vanguard Economic Discourse, Mr Fola Adeola, mounted the podium at exactly 10.35am, after the welcome remarks by the Editor-in-Chief of Vanguard Newspapers, Mr Gbenga Adefaye by 10.30am.
After a brief remarks, Mr Adefaye introduced former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Prof Soludo for his keynote address.
Nigeria in dire need of help–Soludo
In his address, professor Soludo said Nigeria was in dire need of help.
He said: “The unique thing about the topic of the event is that Nigeria is in dire need of help. But I wished that the topic is centred around the new economic plan.
There is no doubt that the present government inherited a depleting economy but it is also depleting the foreign reserve it met. If it had even grown it by 50 percent, it would have been a different story by now.
Workers have suffered the most in the present government being owed arrears which reduces their nominal life, more so as inflation has hit the roof.
Monetary and exchange rate policies are out of this world. We have created havoc in trying to stop the importation of tooth picks. We are busy chasing the rat while the local industries are closing down
Nigeria has refused to learn lesson from what happen.
I have read all the economic blue prints of all governments, since 1970, every plan appears to begin without every government blames the previous government and at the end of the day, end up doing nothing and the circle continues.
As citizen, we must hold government accountable. The APC government promised to give a clean slate from the debris of the past. My question is where is…or are we going to continue as usual.
In the context of any serious economy, particularly of a post oil the exchange rate will be decisive. It will not be silver bullet.
The truth is that the micro economy indices would remain dicey until we remove the uncertainty in exchange rate regime.
There is no doubt that govt mean well, as the saying goes, the road to hell is always filled with good intentions. We have wasted too much time to reinvent the will and Nigerians are paying for it.
What Nigeria needs now is statesmanship politics
PANEL OF DISCUSSION
Mailafia
One of the panelist, Dr Obadia Mailafia, who spoke on the blind spots of national development said: “I agree with the keynote speaker on some fact of his lecture.
He said: “However, I do not think that economic blueprint of this government is not economic diversification but a fire brigade strategy to get the economy out of recession.
We have forgotten that many of our cities are no longer involved in regional and urban planning. Again, our young ones, no longer have a voice. If we don’t build for them, if we don’t provide a platform today, we will not have a tomorrow.
We need to emancipate our women who are greater in number and reintegrate them into the national polity.
Mailafia, a former deputy governor of the CBN, said: “Industrialisation, technology and development. When it comes to Africa, we never mention industrialisation and technology. But I dare say that we must industrialise or perish.
Now the elephant in the room; No matter how well a government means, if does not have a good civil service to implement his ideas, failure is the end result. We must go back to finding quality civiservice workforce to be able to interprete policies of govt.
Another panelist, Muda Yusuf, said there was more that the private sector could do to rescue the nation’s ailing economy.
He said: What can the private sector put on the table to rescue the economy. We need to involve the private sector in economic recovery. However, the key driver is confidence. Exchange rate. Getting it right in foreign exchange policy is a critical enablement to getting the economy in the right direction. Again, there are all manner of underhand practices across all levels of the foreign exchange rate chain, which has become disincentives to private sector participation.
All these have created credibility problem. We need to give way for market to play a role in the direction of foreign exchange policy.
Mailafi, who is Director-General of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, LCCI, harped on the need for a monetary policy effect that will lead to rescuing the economy.
He said: “Domestic player can have no incentive in a sector where the interest rate in between 25 to 30 percent.
Government borrowing: govt is borrowing at 18-20 percent, and risk. So how can the private sector compete in that kind of system. We need to check the rate at which govt borrows. It’s scandalous.
We need to protect, but we need to be cautious in the way we do it. The domestic capacity is so weak and it has driving hunger.
AREMU
On his part, a member of the National Executive Council, NEC, of the Nigeria labour Congress, NLC, Mr Issa Aremu said it was imperative to look at the nation’s political economy.
Aremu said: The point of departure of the economic recovery plan is moving away from the contents of section 2 of the 1999 constitution. The government should harness resources to create wealth and welfare of the people.
We need to improve on the government to be able to know where we are going in the next ten years or more
This new recovery plan is still centred on the oil and gas. Business people will want know what we want to achieve in terms of business in public and private sectors.
We must have an exchange rate policy that grow the economy. We must have a way of controlling capital. The govt has done well in banning some products. I think they should even ban more. Instead of giving somebody foreign exchange to go to china to buy fabrics that cannot last, why not give it to Nigerian textile mills to develop.
I disagree with FG’s banning policy—OTTI
In his remarks, former Group Managing Director of Diamond Bank, Dr Alex Otti disagreed with the Federal government’s decision to ban some imported items.
Otti said: I disagree that govt should ban more things. In fact banning 41 things, means that they must also find way to come back through the back door.
You cannot be increasing interest rate in a recession. What drives savings is not rate but a lot of other policies. Central bank should be thinking of bringing interest rate down. It would encourage people to borrow, increase spending and encourage people to invest.
Structure of the Nigerian economy. We have come into this deceit that we eulogise ourselves as a big oil economy. Again, we celebrated too early of the size of our economy when the GDP rebase was done some time ago.
We need to look at the structure of this economy. As we are restructuring the economy, we need to restructure the polity. I don’t agree with the kind of the Presidential government we are running today. We cannot afford it. We cant afford the size of governors and deputy governors who collect fat security votes when they are not fighting wars. We can’t afford, the number of legislators who take fat allowances and work only three times a week.
I believe that this country does not need more than six governors.
Fayemi
On his part, Minister for Solid Minerals Development, Dr Kayode Fayemi said: “All that Soludo has said, are actually what the plan tends to do. It is a plan that identifies.
It is not of planning that we are suffering from, it is lack of implementation of previous plans. However, we didn’t just get to this point now. The rain started beating us long ago. The present government cannot do magic over night.
We still need oil revenue to diversify. Diversification is not tantamount to ignoring oil and gas. It also means making good use of the revenues of the oil and gas.
There is no doubt that the government is underperforming but we can also see that our tax system is one of the very lowest
Exchange rate should be reviewed—Rewane
For the Managing Director of Financial Derivatives Company, Mr Bismarck Rewane, he opined that there is need for a review of the exchange rate.
Oshiomhole
Also speaking, former of Edo State, Mr Adams Oshiomhole said: “Growth is useful when it affects the lives of people. To me, there is nothing like free market. Who is the market free from or for.
When there is no attitudinal change, particularly from the elite class, transparency would just be only a beautiful word. How do you diversify economy by pricing money out of the rich of the common investor. Everything about the discussion of the economy is how it will improve the welfare of the ordinary man.
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