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By Merit Ibe
The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has lamented the economy’s continued struggle with inhibiting burdens despite recorded growth rates.
The chamber’s remark was contained in it’s statement on Nigeria’s economic growth performance, where it expressed concern over inflation, weak revenue generation, degenerated infrastructure, forex challenges, unsustainable cost profile seen in debt services and subsidy payments and the daunting threats of worsening insecurity that have been setbacks to the growth of the economy.
The Director General, Chinyere Almona, said though the economy has consistently recorded growth rates breaking many analysts’ predictions of expected lower growth rates, the growth of 1.2% recorded for agriculture and the 3% for manufacturing were comparatively low when compared with other sectors that grew at above 5%.
“This is also indicative of the threats facing these sectors that power Nigeria’s real sector. The woes in these two sectors are responsible for the frightening rise in our inflation rate. And with the excruciating burden from debt service, subsidy payments, and worsening insecurity, many more production activities may be constrained in the coming months.”
Almona however advised the Federal Government to sustain its targeted interventions in selected critical sectors like agriculture, manufacturing, export infrastructure, tackling insecurity and free more money from subsidy payments.
“It is also worrisome that the 2023 budget estimations indicate that there may not be any significant allocation to capital projects in 2023. “We urge the government to tackle oil theft to earn more foreign exchange, borrow from cheaper sources to reduce the burden of debt servicing, and take a decisive step towards removing fuel subsidies
