Onitsha-based business agents, under the aegis of Onitsha Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (ONICCIMA) has bemoaned the poor condition of national economy and rising neediness level in the nation.
The gathering said that the present retreat in the nation, combined with other full scale financial difficulties, had kept on representing a solid danger to the Organized Private Sector.
The out-going President of ONICCIMA, Uchenna Apakama, expressed this at the sidelines of the gathering’s 29th Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Onitsha
As indicated by him, a circumstance “where poverty level has been aggravating, with 67.1 per cent of the population living below a US dollar per day, with power generation still a nightmare and electricity tariffs soaring higher and distribution companies, DISCOs, blatantly refusing customers’ access to pre-paid meters, is highly worrisome.
“The Monetary Policy Rate, MPR, is still pegged at a higher rate of 14 per cent since July 2016, with lending rate of between 20-30 per cent remaining unattractive to the OPS, while the rate of inflation is almost 18 per cent, just as 130 million Nigerians lack adequate sanitation, with 57 million lacking access to safe drinking water, leading to the death of some 45,000 children annually due to diarrhoea.
“Unemployment rate across the land is high, hovering at 42.24 per cent in 2016, with thousands of graduates joining the labour market every year. Corruption, insecurity and crime, including armed robbery, kidnapping, Boko Haram, and herdsmen attacks are assuming pervasive and horrendous dimensions now more than ever.”
He, along these lines, approached the administrations at all levels to keep taking proactive measures to lessen the high rate of neediness in the land, even as he respected the activity of the Federal Government in building up the ‘Simplicity of Doing Business Commission’ headed by Acting President Yemi Osinbajo.
Share this
