Economy: Mailafia advocates rigorous policy implementation

Dr Obadiah Mailafia, former Central Bank of Nigeria(CBN) Deputy Governor has expressed optimism that rigorous implementation of various economic policies in the country would help to grow the economy.

Mailafia said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday in Abuja.

He said that Nigeria had many good economic policies that when implemented would help bring about massive development.

“We need to focus on implementation, this country is not short of ideas and we have several economic documents, the current one is the National Economic Recovery Document, 2017 to 2020.

“ It is very solid and well written.

“Let us engage in rigorous implementation of these policies and also engage policy analysts that are conversant with daily happenings in various sectors of the economy,’’ he said.

According to him, the analysts will give feedback on findings to the economic management team of the government.

This he said would help government to identify lapses and enforce adequate actions that would yield immediate result. “What we need is action, focus, accountability, monitoring and taking action based on this.

“This is what we need to move the economy forward,’’ he said.

On 14 per cent interest rate of the Monetary Policy Committee and funding of the Small and medium Entrepreneur (SME), he said the rate was far too high for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to thrive.

Mailafia, who noted that some progress had been made in managing the monetary policy rate, stressed the need for single digit lending rate.

“We need to bring down interest rate but I know it is not easy in the time of deflationary spiral and pressure on the exchange rate,’’ he said.

Economic experts explain that since reductions in general price level are called deflation, a deflationary spiral occurs when reductions in price lead to a vicious circle.

According to Mailafia, there is need for more and better work to get down the lending rate to an affordable level.