The federal government reaffirms its commitment to enhancing the economy

The Federal Government has on Tuesday in Abuja, restated its unwavering commitment to ensure improved economy through citizens oriented policies for effective development in the country.

Rinsola Abiola, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Citizenship and Leadership, stated this at a Town-hall meeting organised by the Public and Private Development Centre (PPDC), to assess President Bola Tinubu’s one year in office.

Abiola explained that the commitment could be seen in the recent steps taking by the Federal Government to address price hike in foodstuffs, recently the federal government temporally removed tariffs on imported grains and other food items as part of its strategy to enhance living conditions for all Nigerians.

According to her, the president is committed to the democratic principles and that reflect in his approach to managing issues bothering public affairs.

“Although we are having quite a number of challenges at the moment such as food inflation among other challenges but the administration is responsive, especially with the recent tariff lifted on some food items.

“This is an administration that is very aware of the situation of our people and with some of these measures; we expect a downward review of prices very soon.

“So the government is not unaware of the situation, it is doing everything that it can to ameliorate the sufferings of our people,’’ she said.

Analysing Tinubu’s one year in office, Olufemi Oluseyi, Lead Research and Insights, Dataphyte Foundation, stated that within the period under review, there were unrelenting productivity, unstable prices and unused potentials in terms of youths’ unemployment.

Oluseyi further explained that the productivity had been on the increase in the past four quarters compared to his predecessors.

“He has done very well but the major problem is inflation; food inflation that is where the problem is, also deregulation in the foreign exchange market and the oil sector.

“Also unemployment too, as at the time we did the analysis it was a bit way up from 4.6 per cent to five per cent as for the third quarter in 2023,’’ he said.

On revenue, Oluseyi commended the present administration, saying for the first time since the last three years, the percentage of capital expenditure exceeded every other expenditure.

“In 2023 not only was recurrent expenditure higher, debt servicing expenditure was also higher than the capital expenditure. But in this administration, we have the capital expenditure taking the larger chunk of the budget.

“I also see that the budget shows lower debt risk, that is, 16 per cent of the budget is not going to be financed by any debt. This is the first time we are having that,’’ he added.

He said although there were some unfulfilled promises in this administration, but from the way the president is going, “we are hopeful his second year is going to be better.’’

On her remarks, Lucy Abagi, the Director of Partnership and Innovation, PPDC, said the aim of the meeting was to promote accountability and transparency using data and evidence based information.

“We ask the people on the street about the administration of President Bola Tinubu, they have different perspectives which are not based on data.

“So to comprehensively analyse this administration’s one year in office, we thought about bringing together our civil society partners, who have worked with us at different sectors.

“And have been able to do some level of evaluations to see how the current administration is faring in terms of different parameters such as economy, inflation, unemployment, human capital development and healthcare education,’’ Abagi explained.

She said after the meeting all the recommendations would be put together and sent to the President, hoping that the findings would be taken into action to promote better administration and governance.