Contrary to calls in some quarters that the present administration should not appoint a World Bank or International Monetary Fund (IMF) groomed personnel to man the Ministries of Finance and National Planning, the Managing Director, Cowry Asset Management Limited, Mr. Johnson Chukwu has faulted the calls describing it as stereotyping.
Chukwu who made this known while speaking in an interview with Primetime Reporters in Lagos stated that whether or not the would be Ministers of Finance and National Planning are homegrown or IMF/World Bank grown should not be a yardstick for measuring the performance of any administrator rather the persons’ competence.
He opined that economic policies are situational which one could not sit in the comfort of his or her desk to craft without seeking how it would play out in the field as well as how other countries would react to such a country adding that crafting of economic policies is a heterogeneous factor which according to him is outside one’s control.
According to him,” In the case of Nigeria, oil export proceeds, the interests of the Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) in your country, what happens in other countries, do we have a stable global economic environment? It doesn’t matter whether the person is home grown or coming from outside the country or from the Diaspora, it doesn’t matter”.
“So, the key thing is this, I think it will amount to stereotyping to talk about not bringing somebody from outside the country or within the country. We should just focus on the quality and the capability of whoever is going to be an administrator”.
It will be recalled that following the recent economic downtown in the country under the Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, many had criticized the policies churned out by the nation’s economic management team headed by the former Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala saying that their policies were tended towards the IMF/World Bank at the detriment of the nation’s economy thus calling for a home grown Ministers of Finance and National Planning who will craft more of pro nation’s economy policies.
