Article Summary
- The CEO, Budgit has said that the next administration should focus on tackling inflation first.
- According to him, food inflation is important because it is impacting Nigerians the most.
- Crop production is still around 20 to 22% of Nigeria’s GDP.
The Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian civic organization, Budgit Oluseun Onigbinde, has said that the incoming government administration needs to focus on tackling inflation first. He said this during an April 30 interview via Channels TV.
According to him, the government needs to figure out a way to stem food inflation because even if fuel subsidy is removed and people can still eat for a reasonable amount of money, that solves a big part of the problems plaguing the country. He said:
- “Food inflation is higher than the consumer price index, so you must find a way to tackle food inflation. There is no easy way out, but you must look at the entire value chain and see where there are the biggest points of waste and figure out where the components of inflation are happening.
- “You must find a way to dip into your productivity for those crops. Crop production is still around 20 to 22% of our GDP. So, if there’s any place to tackle food inflation, it’s about crop production and the entire value chain around it.”
Sustaining a non-oil economy
According to Onigbinde, Nigeria needs to become a country that survives outside of oil. To do this, he said all stakeholders need to build capacity and avoid being comfortable with where things are right now. He said:
- “We also need to focus on non-oil growth, especially non-oil exports, we must become an economy that exports things outside of oil. The current government has taken it forward a bit, but it has to be far more. We can’t be producing $4 billion of non-oil exports and pat ourselves on the back. We need to quadruple that figure. We need to build an economy that is non-oil driven.”
Culture of fiscal efficiency
Onigbinde also addressed the issue of country revenues, which have not been the best in recent times. He said it is important for the next administration to demonstrate fiscal efficiency. According to him, practising fiscal efficiency does not start from budget cuts, it starts from the culture of governance. He stated further that a culture of people taking whatever they can from government coffers only makes things worse. But a culture of understanding where the country is and displaying discipline in expenditure will help the country achieve fiscal efficiency.
What you should know
Some economic analysts have previously noted that the major challenge that has contributed to slowing down the inflow of foreign direct investments into the country is the fiscal policy of the outgoing administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.
