A financial expert, Mr. Johnson Chukwu has said that the Federal Government needs to identify some infrastructure that are commercially viable for concession to the private sector which will in turn help attract capital into the economy thereby opening up the economy.
Chukwu who disclosed this in an interview with Primetime Reporters in Lagos stated that with the concession of some commercially viable infrastructure to the private sector, they would quickly build infrastructure that would catalyze the development of of the manufacturing industries in the country.
While applauding the federal government on the deregulation of the Foreign exchange market, he described it as one of the necessary step that the government needed to take to address some of the structural defects in the economy.
He said,” There are other things we need to do like I said earlier; we need to develop alternative sources of FOREX earnings. What deregulation would have done is to open up the market economy to the foreign portfolio investors, home remittances and export of non-crude products.
“But beyond that, because of the peculiarities of the economy, we don’t have infrastructure today and we need to quickly build infrastructure. Government does not have the capacity to build infrastructure, government needs to identify some infrastructure that are commercially viable for concession to the private sector and that will help attract capital into the economy and open up the economy so that we quickly build infrastructure that will catalyze the development of the manufacturing industries in the country.
“So, those are some of the ancillary policies that need to take place before you talk of stability and growth in the economy. So, it is not enough, it is necessary that government has done an exchange rate policy adjustment but it is not sufficient to address the problems we have. We need to do some other policies to complement what we have so far”.
On the statement credited to the Minister of Finance where she was quoted as saying that the federal government may not be able to pay salaries should the current economic trend in the continue, Chukwu who is also the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Cowry Asset Management Limited described that statement as scare mongering adding that he did not see reasons why the government should not be able to pay salaries.
“I just mentioned that we have moved from N305 billion federal allocation in May to N550 billion in June just by adjusting the exchange rate and now that the President announced that they are talking to the Niger-Delta Avengers, so, if that is addressed and we go back to our production capacity, remember, our budget is predicated on 2.2 million barrels per day and $38 per barrel. So, what that means is that today, we are meeting our price target, what we should do is to also meet our production target which is within our control and so, I do not see the reason why the government should not be able to apy salaries at any time”, he stated.
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