Yemisi Izuora
The Director General of Debt Management Office (DMO), Dr. Abraham Nwankwo, has urged Nigerians to support federal government’s efforts at getting the country out of recession and this could be achieved through creativity.
Nwankwo at a breakfast meeting with editors in Lagos on Friday, observed that the task of getting the country out of the present economic challenges remains a collective responsibility.
The DMO boss was optimistic that the measures taken so far by the Federal Government to ensure that the country’s economy becomes sustainable, would be fruitful, noting that there was no reason to despair.
According to him, the authorities were exploring other regenerative areas that abound in the country as part of measures aimed at strengthening the economy.
“Indeed, I am emphasizing that what we are supposed to be focusing on is being able to establish the minimum amount of resources we need to get out of the woods. Let us put our thinking together and identify the needed resources from the most appealing and attractive sources,” Nwankwo said.
“Let me emphasis that our focus is on raising revenue in a way that we will use our resources to solve our problems. The focus for all us is to do whatever we can do to set ourselves on the path of sustainable growth. That path entails that we will diversify our economy in such a way that we have several sources of foreign exchange. That should be one of the indicators.
“If we can replace as many as the things we import, we should be able to establish a sense of sustainability in terms of our recovery. I am optimistic that while the challenges are enormous, the means to get to sustainable growth are abundantly available,” he stated.
He stressed that “for a country that has been used to high growth in the past 10 years and an economy that has a relatively steady source of revenue which has largely influenced our consumption and investment on social programmes to collapse drastically due to the fall in the price of oil, it puts a greater burden on competent management of resources.
“One of the most appealing sources for a company, for instance, that has a challenge of revenue, is to look into debt. Getting debt is not as easy as that because it requires planning, so that you don’t go back to the same type of challenge again.”