Buhari blames COVID-19 for Nigeria's recession

EE2CF0DA-97CE-4415-8977-F4006F0B0C23

President Muhammadu Buhari

President Muhammadu Buhari

By Folasade Akpan

President Muhammadu Buhari said that Nigeria’s recession is because of the severity of the global downturn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

He said this on Monday in Abuja, while declaring open the 26th Nigerian Economic Summit with the theme: “Building Partnerships for Resilience’’.

The summit was organised jointly by the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) and the Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning.

Buhari, who was represented by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, said that the decline in the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) came after 12 successive quarters of positive growth.

According to him, the downturn caused by the pandemic included lockdowns, disruption in global supply chains, business failures and rising unemployment.

“We can all recall that during the lockdown, farming did not take place, businesses were closed; schools were closed as were hotels and restaurants.

“Also, airlines stopped flying, while inter-state commerce was disrupted.

“The economy only began to recover when these activities resumed and if we are able to sustain the nearly three percentage point increase from the second quarter decline of minus 6.1 per cent, the performance in the fourth quarter could take us into positive territory,’’ he said.

Buhari said that it was to mitigate such impact that the Federal Government introduced the Economic Sustainability Plan (ESP).

Also, he stated that all the programmes in the ESP are reliant on the private sector playing a key role in creating and conserving jobs and the production and delivery of services in agriculture, housing, solar power and digital technologies.

Related News

He added that the speedy pathway out of the current recession was to quicken the implementation of the ESP.

“Of course, an improvement in global economic conditions, including the restoration of global supply chains and resumption of exports and remittances, should enable a V-shaped recovery.

“We expect, in the same spirit of partnership, that the private sector will complement these efforts by making maximum use of the provisions of the ESP and the Finance Bill when it is passed by the National Assembly and also by retaining and creating jobs so as to keep people at work.

“In a similar spirit of partnership, private sector enterprises should also pay their due taxes,’’ he added.

Speaking on the theme of the summit, he said that partnerships remained essential to attract the resources for building a solid national infrastructural base.

Buhari said that as was evident when the nation was combatting COVID-19, partnerships were essential and also necessary for framing medium and long-term development plans.

He added that the government had always emphasised that the private sector had a key role to play in the efforts to build a more resilient and competitive economy as expressed in the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan.

Buhari said that private companies in design, construction, logistics and finance were very much engaged in the nation’s infrastructural projects in power and rail as well as road and bridges.

“I am pleased to inform in this regard that we are working actively with the CBN, the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority and state governments under the auspices of the National Economic Council to design and put in place a N15 billion Infraco Fund, which will be independently managed.

“The Infraco Fund will help to close the national infrastructural gap and provide a firm basis for increasing national economic productivity and growth,’’ he said.

NAN

Load more