- It’s high time the government constituted one
Nine months into the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, the need for an economic team to give verve and direction to the economy has never been more urgent. With barely 38 months left of its 48 months tenure, the apprehension – if not frustration – of citizens about the snail pace of governance, and the lack of coherent economic direction is as palpable as the clock ticks.
Today, the economy is in dire straits with no discernible path out of the woods. The price of oil, the major source of revenue, continues on the path of free-fall, leaving the economy virtually on hold. As for manufacturing, the story has been one of perennial decline with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) reporting capacity utilisation as decreasing from 59.50 percent in the second quarter of 2015 to 54.90 percent in the third quarter. The operating environment continues to be as harsh, with very little done to address the stifling policies that have rendered manufacturing a nightmare.
Only last week, the nation’s foreign reserve hit a new low of $27.8 billion –with signs that things might even get worse in the absence of real capacity to produce for export to earn foreign exchange. To compound the situation, the naira last week hit the nadir at N400 to the United States dollar at the parallel market – no thanks to the currency speculators who have settled on making fortunes from betting on the currency. Presently, so dire is the infrastructure situation that it would require an annual outlay of $15bn to bring it up to scratch.
Meanwhile, unemployment – particularly of youths – has reached a crisis point with the latter believed to be close to 50 percent –the highest ever. The same is true of corruption that has grown into cancerous proportions.
Thursday last week, Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, called on President Buhari to convene an emergency economic conference to enable experts brainstorm on the way forward and the future of the economy.
His words: ‘‘I agree with those who say the economy is bad. It is obvious and it is so bad. We really need an emergency economic conference, bringing experts together to march the nation forward. I think the economy is not encouraging. Quite frankly, I think most economists will agree with this”.
The eminent Laureate merely stated the obvious; the Nigerian economy requires fresh ideas to move things forward. It requires fresh hands on deck to get things moving. With due respect to the individual qualities of the members of the federal cabinet and the activism witnessed in some sectors of late, we are hard put to see the kind of bold initiatives on which the envisaged future prosperity can be firmly anchored.
Without question, the CBN has done a fairly good job of mobilising and channelling funds to the real sector, bridging the perceived gaps as well as helping to reduce the cost of lending. Again, on its part, the Federal Government has done a commendable job of tackling corruption headlong, streamlining the processes of governance and cutting avenues of wastes. These are certainly laudable steps.
Yet, as laudable as they are, the same real sector continues to complain of lack of access to credit; of being ill-served by the restrictive policies of the apex bank; of lingering uncertainties and inhibitions in the economic environment; the unfriendly government policies, etc.
These issues deserve to be put on the front burner. Without doubt, the economic crisis cannot be blamed on the Buhari administration because things were in a mess as at May 29 last year when it took over. We also agree there cannot be a quick fix, but at least there should be a think tank working for the government that is trying to put together policies towards addressing the economic challenges.
Indeed, a competent economic management team that will put ideas to work has become a sine qua non. It is the least that the administration can bring about.
