January 31, 2018

The Special Adviser to the President on Economic Matters, Dr Adeyemi Dipeolu, says there is no single short term solution to promote economic development in the country.

Dipeolu stated this on Wednesday in Ibadan at a seminar on the national economy organised by the Ibadan Business School of Government and Public Policy.

He said focusing on the financial sector only may not achieve the desired purpose as all sectors must be taken into consideration in the economic growth plan.

“There is a simultaneous raft of things that must be done: giving skills to young people so that they can work at factories.

“Pushing technology, so that we can be at the cutting edge of global development; There is the while micro-economic issue; priorities in the micro economic sector; the boosting of revenue.’’

Dipeolu further said that the present administration had evolved the Economic Recovery Growth Plan (ERGP) which was being implemented to take care of most of the challenges facing economy.

According to Dipeolu, ERGP has started to yield result as the foreign reserves had risen to $40 billion pushing the country out of recession in 2017.

He highlighted other areas in which the country was making progress to include bringing in over 800,000 new companies into the tax net and increasing power generation as well as boosting manufacturing as well as transportation.

In his lecture entitled, “Transition from Bust to Boom- Fiscal, Financial and Infrastructure Option, ” an economist, Dr Ayo Teriba, said some of the challenges facing the economy include dearth of finance for the private sector and inadequate infrastructure.

“Nigeria does not have to be doing nothing in the face of the bust; there are things that Nigeria can do to unleash government revenue, unleash private financing and unlock infrastructure,’’ he said.

He urged government to liberalise all sectors as well as create joint ventures as was done in the telecommunication sector and downstream sector of the petroleum industry.

In his address at the seminar, the Executive Vice Chairman of the school, Dr Tunde Olaopa, said the institution is an independent think tank committed to raising the bar of reflection on how government could work better through research and provision of innovative platform.

“The purpose is to deepen policy work while at once raising the bar of discourse of policy makers, public managers and development workers, ” he said.