The Federal Government is working on a new population policy to determine how many children a woman will be allowed to have.
This will help the government to check Nigeria’s ballooning population.
Minister of Finance Mrs. Zainab Ahmed stated this yesterday during a plenary session on “Sustainable Economic Opportunities: Ending the Vicious Cycle at the 2018” at the Nigerian Economic Summit.
She said government was consulting with religious and traditional leaders on the issue after which a policy will be formulated.
Mrs Ahmed expressed regret at the controversy generated with the imposition of fine on telecommunications company, MTN for illegally repatriating its profits.
The minister, who described the incident as “very damaging for us” blamed the telecommunications company for the episode because of its refusal to provide required information so as to settle the dispute.
She noted that “MTN failed to cooperate with CBN auditors who were mandated to resolve the matter.”
She maintained that “there has not been any occasion in recent times when investors had difficulty in repatriating their capital.”
The minister admitted that the government was not doing enough in job creation and social investment progrmmes but pleaded that government officials needed the input of private sector operators to develop the economy.
She said “we must find out ways to engage our youths to be active, ensure that transportation is effective, available and reasonably priced”. She said there was need to support the informal sector of the economy so as to absorb the 40 per cent unemployment figure.
She assured that the 2019 general elections would not hamper government’s Economic Recovery Growth Plan (ERGP) target of 2020, saying the Federal Government is committed and focused on delivering on the set goals.
She said government is also partnering different sectors and helping small scale businesses access to finance, creating the enabling environment, improving on infrastructure and make cost of transportation reasonable low.
She said: “We have a situation where there is an economy that is beginning to go back to the path of growth but it is also exposed to a lot of fragility.
Another member of the panel, Dr. Doyin Salami of the Lagos Business School, declared that Nigeria must reverse the massive movement into poverty. He noted that of the 1.5 million candidates that yearly seek admission into universities, only 350,000 are admitted while less than half of them eventually get employment after graduation.
He identified lack of capacity as a major problem of government saying “it is erroneous to assume that government always knows there is a problem. “When they know there is a problem, they may not have the wherewithal to solve it. We must deal with the problem of capacity in government.”
Salami identified abysmally low wages as major contributor to low level corruption in the country declaring that there was upward concentration of income. “We need to go back and review our reward and remuneration system”.
He however, insisted that the reward system must be attractive. “There must be po!icy consistency to give assurance to investors.”
He said there were enough talents and good policies in Nigeria but identified inconsistencies, lack of collective action, coordination and government inability to galvanise citizens as major reasons for lack of development in Nigeria.
He said the executive arm of government must show a sense of urgency and that it is important to have a stable and capable economic management team in place.