Former governor of Bayelsa State, and now senator representing Bayelsa West, Henry Seriake Dickson, has said that continuation of fuel subsidy removal, transparency in oil sector, maintaining a tight monetary policy, among others will ignite economic growth.
Speaking on Friday while presenting a paper at the 11th convocation lecture for courses 29 and 30 graduands of the Nigerian Collage of Accountancy in Kwall Plateau State, the senator called for deliberate government policies that will impact positively on the economic development of Nigeria.
He spoke on a topic titled “The Impact of Governance Policies on Economic Development in Nigeria: Challenges and Sustainability”.
Dickson who was represented by the Director Academic of ANAN University, Prof Sunday Mlanga, explained also that the irresponsibility on the part of leaders has also led to many social unrest, constant calls for restructuring and total overhauling of the entire architecture of the Nigerian governing system.
“This presentation offers key recommendations on policy priorities to build upon Nigeria’s macro-critical reforms, and ignite growth and job creation.
“One, there is need to maintain a tight monetary policy until a sustained disinflation path is achieved and continue improving policy effectiveness.
“There is also need to ensure that the exchange rate is unified and reflects market conditions, while expanding the foreign exchange market.
“To reduce debt risks and creation of room for development and poverty-focused spending, focus on four key areas: continue removing the fuel subsidy and increasing transparency in the oil sector, increase non-oil revenues through better tax policies, cut government waste and direct spending to targeted poverty programs, and stick to realistic budgets to avoid unplanned spending.
“Protect vulnerable groups by expanding cash transfer programs and strengthening social safety nets, and continue addressing long-standing structural constraints,” he said.
He added: “Political rascality, ethnicity, lack of need assessments, corruption, religion and too many points of agenda, inability to properly identify problems, lack of continuity, lack of political will, are all factors militating against effective policy making in Nigeria with respect to economic development.
“Others are inadequate resources, white elephant or unrealistic policy goals, lack of clarity in policy definition, weak democratic values and instructions, lack of good governance, lack of popular commitment, lack of input from the people, plaucity of data, policy instability and lack of thoroughness in policies execution.”
In his earlier remarks, the Director General of the college, Dr Friday Effiong Akpan, explained that a total number of 5,600 students of the Nigerian College of Accountancy on Saturday be certified as accountants at the institution’s 11th combined convocation scheduled for 24th and 25th of January, 2025.
According to him, 12 students out of the 5,600 of them have bagged distinction award, and will be awarded at the convocation ceremony, that the graduating accountants have duly completed their training programmes for the 2022/2023 and 2023/2024 sessions, and that they graduated officially in August 2023.