By Rebecca Akintunde & Omowunmi Ojo
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Economic experts have said the Nigerian economy can be restructured only if we look back at local or domestic production settings and invest more.
The experts who made known this in an interview with The Hope stressed that the government needs to be decisive on restructuring issue of every sector.
An Economic Expert, a senior lecturer from the Department of Agricultural Economics, Adekunle Ajasin university, Akungba Akoko,Dr. Edamisan Ikuemonisan said”what we have in Nigeria is that all we do is lot of buying outside Nigeria,they won’t take our naira we have to buy dollar.
Over the years maybe our leaders didn’t understand this dynamics. They refuse to invest in local or domestic production settings because when our domestic production setting is working efficiently, then that’s when we can have essence to export. The more we import we are able to get foreign currency.
Dr. Edamisan said”we have been telling ourselves to have a norm for our local consumption. The prices of dollar will continue to increase as long as our domestic production is not sufficient enough to battle a higher share than what is taking now at the international market.
He further said”problems will erupt again because they are structural, it’s a conventional problem. Increasing production when the power sector is not working. A lot of our industries has minimize their cost of production, whatever they were using produce before is now insufficient to produce”.
“So, to solve that crisis we have to go back to that cost of production. The cost of production can only be changed when government invest more in our power sector which is electricity.
To create stability in the market,we have to remove money from fuel and let the circle be completed as Nigerians will dance to the tune as it ought to be.
“These are fundamental things that will enable our production to work very efficiently.
In same vein, Dr Chris Ofonyelu added that”price pressures is a global issue not only in Nigeria but every other countries face inflation. It depends on how countries try to manage their crisis not letting the citizens to suffer the full problem.
Ofonyelu who also presumed that “if the trend continues, I mean the Russia and Ukraine war which is part of the source of all these inflation, I think by this time next year the rate would have increased by 700 naira per dollar, because next year is an election year. So there will be increase for dollar because of election, government will spend more, CBN is likely to print more and all these will fuel inflation and will increase our inflation relative to the U.S, which is dollar dominated economy. All these will join forces together to cost naira to depreciate more,so we expect that if this trend continues next year,dollars should have depreciated further above 700 per naira”.
Solving the economy crisis , Dr Chris Ofonyelu analysed that it has to start from the government not only the federal government but also the state government.
“If the government can do more about selling the back lodge then people will be able to purchase,meet their needs,spend and then that will return back to the economy and it makes the economy thick and strong and it survives and companies will be able to make their demands and output production and probably companies planning to sack their workers will not sack”
Also in his words “mind you august,September are holiday periods which means that most food dominated companies will not be having much of good sales and by September first and second week schools are still closed ,meaning that the demand will still be very low,so this two to three months we are going into is usually the off pick of every year.We expect the government to pay up salaries for this forth coming off pick period and finding a way to at least spend and people can be able to meet up their basic needs”.
