Industry operations in the accounting and financial sectors have urged the Federal Government to urgently fix the breakdown of coordination between fiscal and monetary policies for the development of the economy.
Economic experts also observed that an attempt to implement monetary policy without correlation with sound fiscal policy will led to profligacy in foreign exchange spending.
They said that getting Nigeria economy structured and reengineered to become competitive will require a lot more serious work adding that getting the country out of the current economic recession is no big deal as bringing it back to growth.
Industry experts at an economic discourse series organised by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) in Lagos with the theme 2017 Budget: Tool for Economic Recovery and Growth advocated that Nigeria must urgently see to the formation of a strong fiscal/monetary policy Ministerial Committee will be responsible for the effective monitoring, coordination and implementation of fiscal and monetary policies for the development of the economy.
Etubom Anthony Ani, former minister of finance said the reason for the current recession the country is undergoing is as a result of the breakdown of our monetary policy, indiscipline and ineffective banking supervision.
According to him, “An attempt to implement monetary policy without correlation with sound fiscal policy led to profligacy in foreign exchange spending.
He observed that the country’s policy makers were carried away to trade our naira denominated bonds in international market thus leading to volatility and instability in our exchange rate management.
Isma’ila Muhammadu Zakari, 53rd President, ICAN, observes that there’s no doubt that there are challenges with the economic governance of Nigeria adding that the economy has gone into recession, unemployment is high, foreign direct investment and investor confidence is at a low ebb and there’s overwhelming discontent among the citizenry leading to a serious situation of insecurity in the entire country.
Zakari said the purpose of the ICAN Economic Discourse a part of the critical role that the institute play in bringing the much-needed stability to business and society.
According to him, “It is not surprising therefore, that there are very high expectations by employers, clients, regulators, other enlightened stakeholders and indeed even ordinary, “less informed” Nigerian citizens on of all us Chartered Accountants and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria to contribute our knowledge and skills in getting Nigeria out of the woods”.
Biodun Adedipe, Chief consultant, B. Adedipe Associate Limited while delivering the paper as the guest speaker at the event, said that for a nation, a budget is ultimately aimed at solving societal problems that are multifaceted and interrelated. This requires of the budget both internal consistency of its elements and its consistency with other government policies.
Adedipe observed that the real problem of the Nigerian economy is not diversification of economic activities, rather, it is the fact that her foreign earnings are not diversified, yet she has persistently remained a net importer of non-oil goods/services to which has been added in recent years the net importation of petroleum oil (excess of value of refined petroleum products over that of crude oil exported).
According to him, “There are five execution priorities that we should see reflect in the five budgets to be implemented during that period (2017-2021).
To him these are stabilise the macroeconomic environment; Agriculture and food security; Improve transportation infrastructure; Energy sufficiency power and petroleum products; Industrialisation with focus on SMEs.
KELECHI EWUZIE
