Heritage Bank Partners Vanguard Media to Drive Inclusive Economic Growth
Heritage Bank Limited, Nigeria’s most innovative banking service provider,
has partnered with Vanguard Media to organise the 2019 edition of its
economic discourse in a bid to achieve inclusive economic development in
the country.
L-R: Dr.
Peter Ozo-Eson, General Secretary, NLC; Ifie Sekibo, Managing Director,
Heritage Bank; Mr. Muda Yusuf, DG, Lagos Chamber of Commerce and
Industry; Mr. Fola Adeola,
Founder/ Chairman, FATE Foundation; Chairman/ A Former
Minister, National Planning, Dr. Shamsuddeen Usman; Dr. Doyin Salami,
Economists, LBS and Mr. Gbenga Adefaye, General Manager/
Editor-in-Chief, Vanguard Newspapers, at the Vanguard Economic Discourse
in
Lagos... on Thursday. Photo: Heritage Bank
The theme of the discourse is Human Capital Index versus Economic Growth, Nigeria’s policy options.
The
discourse was informed by the recent World Bank Group ranking of
Nigeria 152 out of 157 countries on its first-ever Human Capital Index.
Also, the Brookings Institution
said Nigeria had overtaken India as the nation with the highest number
of extremely poor people. The report showed that about 87 million
Nigerians are in extreme poverty, with six Nigerians falling into
extreme poverty every minute.
Data
from National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, showed that the number of
unemployed Nigerians rose by 3.3 million or 19 per cent to 20.9 million
in third quarter of 2018
(Q3’18) from 17.6 million in third quarter of 2017 (Q3’17).
The
discourse was therefore organised for economic experts to proffer
solutions to the problems confronting the economy such that government
would be able align the nation’s
economic with that of human capital development.
Managing
Director/Chief Executive Officer of Heritage Bank, Mr. Ifie Sekibo said
they decided to partner with the organisers to achieve inclusive growth
in the economy.
Sekibo
who was also one of the discussants at the event noted that there was
need to deal with the energy problem confronting the country because it
accounted for about
35 percent of overheads of banks.
He
also said the minimum wage would increase liquidity and money supply
and lead to inflation, a development which will make the Central Bank of
Nigeria to mop up the
excess money through Open Money Operation (OMO).
Also
speaking as a discussant, Director-General of Lagos Chamber of Commerce
and Industry (LCCI) said because of inadequate resources available to
the Federal Government
to adequately fund human capital development vis-Ã -vis economic
development, government should grant complete tax holiday to private
operators in the educational and health sectors to enable them to
complement the efforts of government.
He observed that there was need to grow investments in a bid to grow revenue.
Also
contributing, Mr. Doyin Salami, an economist and former member of the
Monetary Policy Committee of the CBN noted that there was need for
inclusive government for
human capital to grow in tandem with economic development.
He
also said there was need to set target like other developed economies
such as China and focused on achieving it, remarking that because there
is capital deficiency
in the economy, there is need to encourage the private sector to invest
in the economy.
Earlier
in his keynote address, Mr. Fola Adeola, former Managing Director/
Chief Executive Officer of Guaranty Trust Bank, had identified 12 giant
evils plaguing the Nigerian
economy. They include hunger, disease, voidness, illiteracy,
corruption, aimlessness, ignorance, visionless, directionless,
crookedness, insecurity as well fear of exploitation.
He
said there was need to systematically and comprehensively deal with
those evils for the inclusive growth of human capital and economic
development.
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