Nigerian Economy: The Challenge Before a New Advisory Council
President Muhammadu Buhari has empanelled an economic advisory council to advise him on economic policy matters. While the idea has been warmly welcomed, how well the team performs will depend on the president takes and implements the council’s advice. With a failing economy and a president not known for taking advice from outside his closed circle of family and friends, the economic advisory council will have a canyon to cross.
In Canada, the constitution of an advisory council on economic growth is predicated on the government’s belief “that when you have an economy that works for the middle class, you have a country that works for everyone”. The minister of finance established the Advisory Council on Economic Growth in March 2016 to develop advice on concrete policy actions to help create the conditions for strong and sustained long-term economic growth.
“And I think that is a problem because once you have a vision, then it is easy. You get people who buy into that vision and those who are competent to accomplish that vision, then it will not be difficult to execute. But once you don’t have a vision, people would do their own thing. CBN may do things that make sense to CBN, ministry of budget and planning may do things that make sense to them while Trade and Investment will anything that makes sense to them.
By the time the figures come out, it will not be shocking that economic growth will remain sluggish in 2019 and over the medium term. And as for unemployment which has become an albatross under this government, the figures are more than depressing. “I hope the first thing they do is to tell the president how he mismanaged the economy in the last four years,” Ezekwesili said.
An economist and CEO, Global Analytics Derivatives Ltd, Mr. Tope Fasua, told THISDAY that the influence and capacity of the economic advisory council will depend on whether the Buhari will listen to them and take their advice. He admitted that the council has a good number of economists who have excelled in their field, but posited that their ability to reach a consensus on advisory decisions to be transmitted to the president will go a long way in determining their success.
A former deputy governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria and presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress in the last general elections, Dr. Obadiah Mailafia, agreed that the economic advisory council should focus on proffering solutions to areas critical to economic growth and long-term economic development
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