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Government Should Create Room For Private Investment – Economist

The CEO of Economic Associate has opined that the Nigerian government should create more room for private investment than borrowing to fund contractors. Speaking on … Continue reading Government Should Create Room For Private Investment – Economist


ayo teriba on private investmentThe CEO of Economic Associate has opined that the Nigerian government should create more room for private investment than borrowing to fund contractors.

Speaking on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Wednesday, Mr Ayo Teriba said that “every contractor is a potential investor with the right incentive. Private investors can go and borrow money to do projects on behalf of the government or with the government.

“I have a strong reservation about the plan to borrow two Trillion Naira in 2016. The government should look for investors not debtors”, he said.

Mr Teriba further stated that leaving investors completely out of the budget is a wrong step.

“The world highly esteems Nigeria and the new government,which is an evidence of the visit of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) boss, Christine Lagarde and the duration of the visit.

“But it is not only the IMF that esteems Nigeria and opportunities in Nigeria, investors do”, he said.

Talking about his reservations about the 2016 budget and the visit of Lagarde, the Economic Associate boss said that “it is good that the President (Muhammadu Buhari), last month, announced his policy directions and also announced his plans/budget for the current year. It is a welcome development that has been commended.

“The visit of the IMF boss is also commendable. It is now, we have a clear direction where the economy is heading and more details about the fiscal situation and where I might say I have residual reservation. I must emphasise that I fully agree with the broad direction of the government and my reservation is about how we want to fund some of them”, he said.

Giving his opinion about a statement made by the IMF boss on not interfering with the budget, Mr Teriba said that” IMF doesn’t get involved until a country has debt service difficulty.

“If we allow the debt to grow with the current low revenue situation and you get into a situation where you cannot honour your external debt obligations, you won’t find IMF smiling at you”, he added.