Economist Advises FG To Revive Dilapidated Infrastructure

An economist, Prof.
Godwin Nwaobi, has advised the Federal Government to revive dilapidated infrastructure in the country, as part of the measures to boost the economy.
Nwaobi, a research director of Quantitative Economic Research Bureau, Nigeria, gave the advice in an interview with newsmen in Abuja on Thursday.
He said that the government needed to stimulate the economy by revisiting dilapidated infrastructure to stimulate the economy and make it more productive.
“The government should also revive power infrastructure and build good road network that will enable government to stimulation work.
“Something must be done about the obsolete infrastructure so that the economy can be stimulated and be brought from recession,’’ the expert said.
The expert further advised the government to come out with proactive measures to address the recession.
“Nigeria’s economy is going through a recessional period which is characterised by high level of unemployment, low productivity and high level of inflation.
“ It is also characterised with bad exchange rate which I may call high depreciated; all these factors which characterise an economy that is going through recession.
“It signalled that it is not well with the country and that affected the output level which is captured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP), giving this business cycle identification,’’ he said.
According to him, Nigeria should put up practical measures to reclaim the economy as being the biggest in Africa.
He spoke on the recent International Monetary Fund (IMF) report which stated that South Africa had overtaken Nigeria as the biggest economy and advised the country to be dynamic in its diversification drive.
The position it reclaims from Nigeria using the GDP at the end of 2015, the size of South Africa’s economy was 301 billion dollars at the rand’s current exchange rate, while Nigeria’s GDP was 296 dollars billion.