Stakeholders have urged the Federal Government to implement policies that will tame the accelerating inflation in the country.
In separate interviews with The PUNCH, the stakeholders said that concerted efforts from the government were important to alleviate the financial strain on consumers and sustain economic stability amidst ongoing economic challenges.
The Chief Executive Officer of the Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise, Dr Muda Yusuf, said, “The Federal Government should prioritise the issue of these basic needs, which is the high cost of living.
“It should be a priority, which is taking some emergency steps to tackle the problem of high cost of living, direct state intervention to bring down the cost of basic items like food, cooking gas, energy.”
He stated that although the Federal Government’s ongoing reforms were commendable, there was still a critical need for the government to prioritise efforts aimed at directly reducing the prices of various items.
“This would involve those producing those items directly and giving them fiscal incentives so that their cost of production can come down so that the prices of these basic needs can come down, and this would trickle down more than distributing palliatives,” Yusuf suggested.
He noted that the government, for instance, could engage the flour millers and ask what they needed to bring down the prices of bread.
He added that the government could also extend that to sugar, cooking gas and other basic needs and that would enable it to address the challenge of rising prices in the country.
He mentioned that insufficient rice supplies resulted in unused rice meals across the country.
To tackle the issue, he proposed importing rice paddies to assist rice mills until local farmers could meet.
“The government should bring down the cost of energy, renewables, and conversion to CNG by people who want to convert their vehicles. Currently, it is too high. If Nigerians are using CNG, it will just cost them about 30 per cent of the current cost of PMS or diesel,” it asserted.
Yusuf emphasised that the government should work more with cooperatives because there were so many of them across the country.
“If the government gives them funds, they have a way of ensuring that their members pay back the loans because they are very organised,” he added.
He further explained that some of these interventions apart from using the Bank of Industry, the government should also target the co-operatives.
“The sub-national governments should also play a role; everything should not be only about the Federal Government. The state and local governments should do something,” he added.
According to Yusuf, the policy configuration most of the time is completely disconnected from even elementary Economics.
“There is this rot all over the place. We have a long list of policy issues like the forex policy, and monetary policy, among others that must be looked into,” he noted.
On his part, the Partner and Global Transfer Pricing Head, Andersen, Dr Joshua Bamfo, said, “We must formulate policies to help us achieve our end goal, which is to alleviate people from poverty, to be able to afford necessities of life. We must have a sustained economic growth.”
He underscored the need to craft policies aimed at lifting people out of poverty and enabling access to essential goods.
He emphasised that sustained economic growth was fundamental to achieving these goals effectively.
SOURCE: PUNCHNG
