Founder of I-invest and group managing director, Parthian Partners, Mr Oluseye Olusoga, has emphasised the need for Nigeria to be a producing nation in order to boost the nation’s economic performance.
Olusoga stated this at the just concluded 28th Nigerian Economic Summit (NES#28), in Abuja with the theme, ‘2023 and Beyond: Priorities for Shared Prosperity.’
In a chat with selected journalists on the sidelines of the event, he stated that “we believe that NESG provides a very good platform for government and private sector to engage and for us to become an important institution, we need to engage and aligned with government policy.
“We have to understand government’s policies and for us to operate in Nigeria we need to understand the policy and to be aware of how the private sector should be involved and be part of the policy decision.
“The job of government is to provide an enabling environment for the business sector to thrive and this platform is a very good platform for us to actually engage and support that initiative of dialogue between the private sector and the government.”
Speaking on the theme of this year’s edition, he stated that “it is high time Nigerians come together and realized that the country belongs to all of us. We believe that by being part of the dialogue, we are able to think about the future beyond 2022, how we can help build industry, support the government in fixing issues around unemployment, education and the economy, which are the bed rock of any society.
“We believe that in doing so, it goes beyond shaping of the policy, there should be direct investment and actions on the policy of the conversations that have actually been held and when we are able to do that, then society is better off in the long run and this is how we intend to help.”
On the naira depreciation, he said Nigeria needs to be more productive, saying that “we need to focus on productive strategies.
If we do not produce, the country is going to be poor. Right now, the country has not been able to actually generate enough revenue to meet all its obligations in the year which results to high debt to revenue ratio.
“Also, the country has a complex issue around on how to rebuild infrastructure and naturally we have to print money or borrow money to do all those things.”
He called for a cohesive strategy between monetary policy and fiscal policy, saying that “if these two can come together, this will get us to be a producing nation and export valuable services. But as long we do not produce the turbulent of the naira crisis will continue.
On foreign investment into the country, he said “we need to know if the funds are increasing productivity of the country because if it is not increasing productivity of the country, it is not different from renting.”
He stated the government should engage with investors and create an environment that will attract foreign investors to the country.
