Prof. Ndubisi Nwokoma, Director, Centre for Economic Policy Analysis and Research (CEPAR), University of Lagos, has urged the Federal Government to revisit the closure of the nation’s land borders.
Nwokoma, who gave this advice in an interview in Lagos, said the opening of the land borders closed since August 2019 was due.
According to him, what the Federal Government needs now is to open the borders and address challenges in border control.
”The benefits being experienced from the border closure will be for a short time.
“I expect the Federal Government to open the land borders and focus on addressing the numerous challenges in border control, if it has not started that already,” he said.
The Federal Government on Aug. 19, 2019, closed the nation’s land borders to goods traded with Benin, Cameroon, Chad and Niger.
The government’s decision is to check smuggling of goods to protect the economy.
Nwokoma also said that the government should revisit unconventional monetary policies.
According to him, return on capital or savings should be higher than inflation rate, else savings may dry up and affect availability of investible funds.
The economist said that Central bank of Nigeria should fine-tune the monetary policies, noting that negative return on capital (low savings rate and high inflation rate) would act as disincentive to savings.
He added that insecurity and uncertainty in the economy would discourage private sector operations and foreign capital inflow.
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