THE Director-General of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) Chinyere Almona has urged the Nigerian government to harness the country’s assets to raise more revenue and reduce borrowing.
Almona made this suggestion in an interview with The ICIR, saying that the advice was now necessary as a result of high cost of borrowing being incurred by the government.
“There is, therefore, a need for government to take urgent steps to establish the market values of the assets, securitise the corporate assets and commercialise the real estate assets to raise revenue for the government and foreign exchange inflows for the country,” she said.
Almona noted that the Federal Government should focus more on non-interest asset-linked securities, stressing that they were capable of unlocking revenue and growth in the long term.
The Federal Government says it should spend three to five per cent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on infrastructure to close the gap.
Currently, the cash-strapped Nigerian government is embarking on borrowing to fund critical projects.
Almona suggested that the viable option was to allow the private sector to invest in some commercially-viable infrastructure projects to generate incomes for repayment of funds expended.
“This will give more scope for the Federal Government to deepen fiscal consolidation,” she said.
Blessing Otoibhi is a Multimedia Journalist and Anchor host for the News in 60 seconds at The International Center For Investigative Reporting. You can shoot her a mail via [email protected] or connect on Twitter @B_otoibhi