Business
Create Enabling Environment For Investment, FG Urged
Some lecturers on Tuesday, urged the Federal Government to be proactive in creating enabling economic environment that would attract and sustain foreign investors.
They told newsmen in separate interviews in Lagos that sustainable economic environment was essential to development and growth.
According to them, Nigerians are still waiting to see the federal government’s avowed commitment to revamp the comatose economic infrastructure.
Dr. Kazeem Bello, a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Economics, University of Ibadan, said that government needed to tackle the nation’s epileptic electricity supply to boost economic and industrial activities.
Bello also said that a steady electricity supply, if achieved, has the multiplier effects to stimulate local entrepreneurs and attract foreign investors needed for the creation of employment opportunities.
“For Nigeria to be successful economically, the power sector must be given urgent attention to ensure stable electricity in the country,” he said. He appealed to the federal government to fast tract the privatisation of Power Holding Company (PHCN) to end the challenges of power supply in the country.
Dr. Olumide Owoade, a Lecturer in the Department of Economics, Lagos State University (LASU), also urged government to pay critical attention to national security as a means of sustaining investors’ confidence in the Nigerian economy.
“Without solving the problem of bomb blasts and kidnappings in the country, we cannot have foreign investors that would invest in the country’, Owoade said.
He also said that the problem of insecurity had become worrisome in recent times and needed to be solved to ensure safety of investments.
Owoade identified the nation’s poor road network and inadequate information technology platforms as some of the problems militating against Nigeria’s quest for development.
In his contributions, Dr. Taiwo Opeyemi of the Department of Economics, Lagos State University, called on government to squarely address the age-long problem of policy inconsistency at the three tiers of governance.
“Non-compliance with the global best practices can also deter local and foreign investors’, he said.