Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State has said the current economic policies being chunned out by the President Bola Tinubu administration will not solve the county’s economic problems.
The Edo State governor while speaking at the Edo Zone of the Bankers’ Committee in Benin City on Saturday noted the strategy of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) of increasing the monetary policy rate (MPR) will rather hurt, than help the Nigerian economy.
Obaseki insisted that the only way to stimulate the Nigerian economy was to promote and support local production of goods and services so that jobs can be created and money that would have been spent on forex for import saved.
He said:
“I understand the monetary rationale for increasing MPR fundamentally and fiscally, it is not going to lead to growth in our economy. We must focus on the fundamentals which are increasing production, making sure our citizens produce goods and services we consume, and depend less on imports
“Our economic policy and monetary policy cannot be determined by exchange rate alone, so the issue of increasing cash reserves in the bid to tighten the liquidity is going to be detrimental to our economy.
“I understand the challenge the monetary authorities face, but unfortunately, you cannot clap with one hand. The economy is about fiscal and monetary policies – both must work hand-in-hand and when they don’t as they don’t in Nigeria, there can be a crisis.
“We should focus on fiscal issues so that we can grow our economy out of the challenges we had. We should not panic too much because of foreign exchange. We must focus on how we can do things within our economy, and how we can grow our economy and earn more foreign exchange if foreign exchange is our problem, but I believe creating jobs for young people should be more of a priority for us as people at this time.”