Social Justice has 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 by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on
Tuesday.
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 2nd quarter, there was need for the Government to mainstream the local
content policy at all tiers of government as well as produce a 2018 budget that
would be structured to grow the economy and develop human capacity.
