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Dogara advocates low interest rates to grow Nigeria’s economy

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Dogara advocates low interest rates to growth Nigeria’s economy

Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Yakubu Dogara, has said that unless interest rates on loans in Nigeria are reduced to make funds accessible to more Nigerians with investible ideas, the nation’s economy will continue to rely on investors from other countries to make it grow.

Speaking at a briefing on Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (EGRP) by the Federal government’s economic team led by the Minister of National Planning at the National Assembly, Speaker Dogara said the government must ensure that more Nigerians dominate the economic sector to propel growth, lamenting that the present situation where Nigeria has to source funds from foreigners to push national projects and create job opportunities is undesirable and must be addressed by encouraging more economic activities through availability of funds.

He said, “Granted the way the Nigerian economy is structured and organised, is it possible for people who have investible ideas to have access to funds to be able to invest, or do we continue to rely on monies flowing in from other jurisdictions to our country?

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‘The cost of funds in Nigeria is too high. What can we do about this? Honestly speaking, if the young people who are leaving university each year will be able to access funds at single digits, some of them may not even bother about the jobs that we are talking about. They will be able to pursue ideas and dreams that they have and those dreams may lead to generation of the jobs that others are seeking.

“I have said this over and over again, what is it that we can do as a government to bring down interest rates in this country so that people can access these funds and develop the economy? I do not know where we are going to get 404 billion dollars from, for instance, in Nigeria, I don’t know where. I don’t even know if we can raise 12 billion dollars from private sector in this country, except we rely on outsiders.

“But the point is that we should dominate the space ourselves and the only way we can do that is to bring down interest rates. I do not know how we can escalate this discussion or in what manner we can achieve this, but it is something we cannot run away from.”

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