Nigeria Employers' Consultative Association, NECA, has said the federal government needs to do a lot more to turn the nation's economy into the path of growth and recommended, macroeconomic stability, improving forex availability, and power supply among others to address the socio-economic challenges confronting Nigeria.
The umbrella body for employers in the country lamented that like other economies across the globe, the Nigerian economy since 2022 has been marked by the cost-of-living crisis; high inflation as a result of spiraled food and energy costs; increased global interest rate and tightened financial conditions that led to stagnation and technical recession in several economies among others.
The Voice of Businesses in Nigeria said the nation's economy also suffered accelerated inflationary pressures that persisted into the year 2023, following the inability of the government to address the fundamentals with consistent policy instruments.
Speaking, NECA's President, Mr. Taiwo Adeniyi, proposed the development of implementable economic/industrial policies, macroeconomic stability, improving forex availability, energy/power supply, resuscitation of domestic refining, taxes, and government regulation, infrastructure, and insecurity.
According to him, Government should inculcate the economic realities of Nigeria in designing an industrial policy with implementation and monitoring measures to boost the performance of the economy, saying among others, "The government has to prioritize the formulation of policies to achieve macroeconomic stability with relatively low and stable inflation and exchange rates while avoiding policy inconsistency - especially among the different agencies of government. It should develop strategies to synthesize monetary and fiscal policies to moderate the high rate of inflation, double-digit lending rate, and unfavourable foreign exchange parity.
"The government has to sustain and fine-tune the current effort at unifying the various exchange rates in the economy. It should support the real sector with the necessary infrastructure required to boost value addition in non-oil sectors.
This will drive global competitiveness in the Nigerian export market and ultimately facilitate inflows of foreign exchange from non-oil exports. It must ensure transparency in the foreign exchange management system to deepen investment confidence. Capital control measures should be abolished. Investors should be allowed to repatriate their funds at will.
"There should adequately implement the new Electricity Act, particularly as it empowers state governments to generate and distribute electricity; develop and implement a roadmap for improved power supply focusing on off-grid solutions and independent power projects by the private sector and develop and implement strategies to boost renewable energy utilization and energy efficiency in the country.
"The government should review the current status of the four national refineries and establish modalities for privatization. It must create incentives to attract private sector investment in gas aggregation to end the current gas flaring, and create incentives to increase private sector investment in the petrochemical industry."
On the issue of taxes, he noted that the government should publish the list of approved harmonized taxes and levies for the real sector through the Joint Tax Board, JTB, to address the issues of the multiplicity of taxes and levies, commence implementation of the harmonized taxes and levies project which should be monitored and enforced strictly by the JTB.
It should develop a comprehensive and integrated framework that will intentionally transit operators in the informal sector to the formal sector to expand tax revenue, widen the tax net rather than increasing the tax rate or the tax burden of existing taxpayers and implement the Steve Oronsanye report on the reduction and re-alignment of Government Agencies and Parastatals in order to streamline the number of taxes, levies, fees, and administrative charges.
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"There should be more investment in the transportation sector (road, rail, waterways, etc.) to mitigate the high cost of transportation logistics in the country.
The government should equally invest significantly in ports infrastructure including scanners, etc, and implement the single window platform to eliminate significant human inference in the ports clearing system and dredge other ports across the Federation to free the confession at the Lagos parts.
"The government should formulate policies that will reduce poverty and the unemployment rate to reduce criminal activities and social vices and ensure that Nigerian borders are structured and well monitored with able personnel."
