Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has said that its blueprint for economic recovery includes pursuing deliberate policies that will guarantee single-digit commercial lending rate across all productive sectors, immediately it is re-elected into office in 2019.
In what seemed like a policy agenda for the 2019 electioneering, the main opposition party said its economic blueprint will make a turnaround of the prevailing double digit being operated by the All Progressives Congress (APC).
In a statement issued on Sunday by PDP’s National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, the party also said it plans to push policies that engender increased local content in all critical sectors.
The statement quoted the party’s spokesman as having stated this when a delegation from a coalition of small and medium enterprise owners paid him a visit in his office in Abuja, at the weekend.
Ologbondiyan said the initiative is targeted at providing the much needed interventions in key sectors including power, agriculture, manufacturing, construction, real estate, transport, solid mineral mining, oil and gas, education and retailing, among others, without which the economy cannot rebound.
According to Ologbondiyan, “There is no way economic activities can rebound unless we put our people back to work. Over 20 million Nigerians have been put out of work by the APC and many more are underemployed. Families are under stress and citizens have been subjected to abject poverty by the Buhari administration.
“Our recovery plan involves a concerted effort to reopen the market and encourage economic environment that will grant our investors and entrepreneurs affordable credit facilities to favourably compete and thrive.”
He said the blueprint includes the formulation and implementation of policies that will guarantee single digit commercial lending rates as well as increased local content in all critical sectors.
He explained that efforts will be targeted at boosting economic activities, “revamping our industries and reopening the space for massive investment and employment opportunities for millions of Nigerians across all sectors”.
“This will involve an immediate review of all tight monetary policies of the APC, including obnoxious foreign exchange and import regulations, multiple taxation, exorbitant tariffs on essential services, particularly in power and communication, as well as other unnecessary economic bottlenecks that are currently stifling small scale entrepreneurship, industrial activities and general economic growth.
“Unlike the APC’s exclusionist style, the PDP will run an all-inclusive economic system that guarantees an open market operation and return a people-focused pricing regime. This was part of the policy thrust with which the PDP grew our economy to become one of the fastest growing in the world before the unfortunate incursion of the APC.
“Come 2019, the PDP will revamp our economy and put our citizens back to the path of prosperity,†he said.
Speaking, the leader of the delegation, Tosin Olaoye, commended the PDP for its rebuilding effort, adding that Nigerians are eager for the return of the party to governance in 2019.
He said Nigeria as a nation fared better under the PDP due to its economic initiatives and people-oriented policies, all of which, he emphasised, are lacking under the APC.
Olaoye said the APC has shown that it has no capacity and competence to run an economy as resilient as Nigeria’s but thrives on false promises, deceit and propaganda, which has brought the nation to its knees in the last three years.
