Dr Aminu Usman of the Department of Economics , Kaduna State University, has urged the Federal Government to ensure strict implementation of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, to enthrone financial discipline in the country.
Usman gave the advice at the Annual General Meeting of the 1988 Economics class of the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, in Abuja.
In his lecture entitled “Winning Back the Strength of the Naira: Prospect and Challenges”, Usman advised the government and other stakeholders to realise and appreciate the urgent need to keep the currency strong and save it from further depreciation and bastardisation.
The don also advised the government to, as a matter of urgency, constitute a non-partisan highly professional Economic Management Team.
“The government should select a team that will be committed and dedicated to the Nigeria project, to assist in designing appropriate economic policies for the country.
“Export promotion incentives hitherto withdrawn, due to corruption and other vices, should be restored.
“It should cause certain tariffs and bans to be imposed on certain category of items in order to protect local industry.”
Usman said that to discourage over reliance on imports, the government should offer incentives to manufacturing firms to promote innovation, local content development, forex earning potentials and employment generation.
He also said that the government should give agriculture, education and the minerals sector priority attention, so as to diversify and address the problem bedevilling the economy.
“CBN must be on top of policy issues and should address the recurring policy inconsistencies that characterised foreign exchange management.
“It should have in place a positive and complementary relationship between the fiscal and monetary policies.
“Government ought to pursue a vigorous campaign for the consumption of Made in Nigeria goods, to help conserve our foreign reserves and ease the pressure on the naira.
“Buying local materials has the added advantage of alerting the entrepreneurial community of the existence of a gap in the market to be filled.
“To achieve that, government should evolve proper orientation strategies to ensure patriotism and nationalism through agencies like the National Orientation Agency (NOA),” the don said.
In addition, he urged the government to develop the fashion, entertainment and ICT industries to export their products, or export, even if to the African continent.
“The ubiquitous fashion houses could be grouped for standardisation of their products and create an export-focused fashion industry.
“The government should encourage diaspora Nigerians to make remittances home and support Nigerians schooling abroad to take up appointments there in order to increase the inflow of foreign exchange to the country,” he said.
Also speaking, the lead discussant, Mr Aro Rasaq, the Managing Director of Infrastructure Bank, urged the Federal Government to formulate monetary policies to strengthen the Naira.
Rasaq also advised that Nigeria should concentrate on products that it has comparative advantage on, to boost its foreign reserves, especially agricultural produce.
He further underscored the importance of diversifying the economy away from oil, saying “we don’t need to be solely an oil exporting country to be prosperous.”
The Tide source reports that the meeting was the third in series of lectures organised by the set to align itself with the ?ABU Alumni Association.