The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has expressed commendations to ongoing Federal Government’s economic resuscitation efforts stressing that the government’s economic recovery program if implemented effectively will go a long way to revive the nation’s ailing economy and take it out of recession post the COVID – 19 pandemic.
The Chamber following its recently concluded quarterly review of the country’s economy said it is impressed with the various economic intervention measures currently been rolled out by the Federal Government through machinery of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and which are targeted at sustaining businesses and ultimately to enable them survive negative impacts of the pandemic.
Expressing the Chambers commendations recently, the Director of Research and Advocacy at LCCI, Mr Mathew Ojo observed that going by the various intervention initiatives, it was clear that government is committed to ensuring that businesses survive impacts of Covid – 19 pandemic but noted that where lies the challenge is in the time lag between when economic pronouncements are made and actual time of assessing the interventions by businesses.
“Well we just have to commend the government because bearing in mind the difficult situation in which the economy was even before Covid 19 came on board, we’ve seen some of the measures rolled out by the CBN and the FG in helping to make provisions for more businesses”.
“The challenge however will be the time it takes from when these pronouncements are made and when businesses start accessing these palliatives and intervention funds. If we can reduce that time lag, maybe it will be better. However the little we have seen, shows that government really wants to ensure that businesses survive the hard times. So we commend them”
Reacting to the rising trend of food inflation and high cost of agricultural commodities across the country, the LCCI advocacy boss attributed the development to seasonal fluctuations between planting season and harvest time by farmers adding that in order to address the price hikes government should concentrate more on enhancing storage facilities as well as other post – harvest activities in general, adding that by so doing surpluses kept at dry period would help to stabilize prices.
“At the onset of rainy seasons we see prices of food items go up and then during the harvest season or dry season it comes down. So unless and until we are able to control this, chances are that food inflation will continue to impact negatively on inflation and push it high anytime there is hike in food prices”
“I think we need to work more on the storage and post- harvest activities. If we have these items during the boom period well stored, when it’s off season, you see that this can help stabilize prices” he said.
