Address Structural Bottlenecks To Boost Economy – Moghalu To Tinubu

Former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Kingsley Moghalu, has called on President Bola Tinubu-led federal government to address structural bottlenecks affecting the country’s economic growth.

Professor Moghalu said the growth in Nigeria’s financial sector, was not reflected in the country’s economy.

Moghalu said the federal government must encourage private sector credit to help drive the economy to production.

He said structural infrastructures, including electricity, inflation and monetary policy, must be addressed to ensure a boost in the country’s economy.

“It is remarkable that despite the growth of Nigeria’s financial sector, the ratio of credit to GDP is only 14%. Private sector credit helps boost capital formation, production, and consumption. Figuring out how to overcome this bottleneck is the task of economic management.

“It requires dealing with structural bottlenecks such as infrastructure (chiefly electricity), inflation and monetary policy (higher profits from investing in government securities), and others. Security is a major structural challenge. Its absence across the country destroys the business environment and SME access to credit. Inclusive economic growth is impossible in this scenario,” Moghalu said on X, on Monday.

Chairman Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, had disagreed with the decision of the Monetary Policy Committee of the CBN on 30 percent interest rate.

Dangote said the monetary policy would affect the economy. He said private sector players would not be able to create jobs with the high interest rate.

The CBN governor, Yemi Cardoso, addressed that the current interest rate at 30 percent monetary policy criticized by private sector players, including Aliko Dangote, was set following focus on data available.

Cardoso said the Monetary Policy Committee was not oblivious to job creation and growth of the economy but had to tame inflation.

“What they look at is data, and they basically go along with what the data says. The MPC has made it very clear that for them the major issue is taming inflation have also made it very clear that they will do whatever is necessary to tame inflation.”

“The MPC is not oblivious to the fact that ultimately we do want to grow. The country does need growth. If these hikes were not done at the time they were done. If you recall, naira to dollar was almost tipping over,” Cardoso said at Business CEO Forum, in Lagos.