Get Technocrats to Manage Economy, Group Tells Buhari

• Get Technocrats to Manage Economy, Group Tells Buhari

The Centre for Social Justice on Thursday called on President Muhammadu Buhari to rejig his cabinet by getting technocrats to effectively manage key sectors of the Nigerian economy.

The group said this in a statement on the Gross Domestic Product growth rate report released on Tuesday by the National Bureau of Statistics.

The report had shown that in the second quarter of this year, Nigeria finally exited its worst recession in 25 years, with a GDP growth rate of 0.55 per cent, having recorded five consecutive quarters of decline.

In its analysis of the report, which was made available to our correspondent by the Lead Director, CSJ, Mr. Eze Onyekpere, the group explained that there was a need for deliberate policies to boost key sectors of the economy.

This, the group said, could be achieved by fast-tracking the reforms in the ease of doing business, and provision of incentives to sectors that could stimulate productive activities.

It said, “In view of the less than one per cent GDP growth, stating that Nigeria has come out of recession is more or less like holding onto any available straw of hope. With a population growth rate of 2.7 per cent per annum, this GDP growth is not significant. Moreover, Nigeria had grown consistently by about six per cent in the years before the recession.

“Thus, there is nothing to celebrate. Rather, this is a call to roll up our sleeves through increased incentives for improved production and service delivery; fast-tracking the ease of doing business initiatives and interventions; rejig the cabinet and get more experts and practical men and women to run key sectors of the economy.”

The group said with the low performance of the non-oil sector in the second quarter, there was a need for the Federal Government to mainstream the local content policy at all tiers of government as well as produce a 2018 federal budget that would be structured to grow the economy and develop human capacity.