Afrinvest West Africa Limited has charged that the focus of government elected during the 2019 election should be on full deregulation of the oil and gas sector amongst others areas needed to achieve sustainable growth of the nation’s economy.
It pointed out that the next government should sees the 2019 general elections as opportunity to reset governance and build growth levers for the economy.
The President Muhammadu Buhari administration came three years ago with high hopes but it has not been able to brought about strong economic growth and development,
Briefing the media on its 2018 Nigerian Banking Sector report with the theme ‘An Economic Agenda For A New Government’ scheduled for launch next Monday in Abuja, the company highlighted seven key areas that should form the focus of government after the 2019 elections.
Speaking at the event in Lagos, Group Managing Director,Afrinvest, Ike Chioke, explained that the first key sector that the new government should focus on is the Oil & Gas sector.
He said that revisiting the PIB and full deregulation of the downstream sector would allow private operators to develop the local value chain and even serve regional markets.
The second sector he listed was the power sector. Chioke said the new government in this regard, needs to improve bankability of the sector.
Boosting competitiveness of the country also formed part of the agenda for the incoming
The Afrinvest boss pointed out that Nigeria needed to remove tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade, noting that the country is on the lower rung of the ladder of the trade and investment in Africa, despite bright growth prospect due to its attractive demographics.
To full participate in the trade and investment ecosystem, Chijioke stressed the need for competitiveness that entailed having good infrastructure that support strong business growth.
He identified transportation and infrastructure as another key area to focus on, urging the new government to plugging the infrastructure deficit through public private partnership (PPP). “PPPs have been recommended as a tested and worthy method to close the infrastructure gap, particularly in road infrastructure”, he said.
Other key areas he listed include; human capital development, security and good governance.
On banking sector in 2017/18, Chioke explained that the sector remained resilient despite economic constraints.
”In fact, ROE rose as revenues and profits accelerated while banks capitalization was stronger – average capital adequacy increased 20 per cent in 2017 from 18.4 per cent in 2016″, he reported.
He noted that the financial performance of the sector was driven by tight monetary policy stance of the apex bank which with its overarching responsibility for price stability, kept rates high and system liquidity low by conducting persistent open market operations along with its normally scheduled auctions.