‘Infrastructure key to transforming economy’

By Chinyere Okoroafor

Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) has said the nation’s economy can become globally competitive if it can let go of subsidies and channel the money into infrastructure development and investment.

The occasion was the launch of its documentary, titled: In The National Interest, and coffee table photo book in Lagos.

A Member of the group’s board, Udeme Ufot, noted that a lot of policies supported by NESG had been implemented, even though it was not at the desired pace.

He said the NESG would continue to dialogue and ensure the growth of the Nigerian economy.

NESG’s Chief Executive Officer Laoye Jaiyeola said the nation’s population doubles every 30 years and that there was a need to double infrastructural, social and human capital development to meet up with population growth.

“The government will say that revenues are not enough and that it is not a debt problem. But the truth is that if a country’s revenue is good enough and expenditure is effective, then debt will not rise. But if the revenue is not enough and you are just spending and spending, then there is bound to be problems.

“Looking at our budget, which is up to N10 trillion, our revenue will just be about N8 trillion. So, there is a gap and the quality of expenditure needs to be seen as this might reduce the deficit. We will not have the need to borrow,” Jaiyeola said.

The newly launched documentary film focuses not only on details about the past, present and future circumstances for Nigeria, but also takes a critical look at the economic activities through the different timelines from the lens of the NESG.

The group is a private sector think tank founded to bridge the gap between the private and public sectors in order to mitigate the struggles of everyday Nigerians and to enable widespread prosperity.