Rewane, in a telephone interview with one of our correspondents, said:
“The hole is much deeper than we thought we were initially; so, it is only when you know how deep the hole is, then you know how to climb out of it.
“How do you climb out of recession?
“You climb out of recession by investing, spending and wooing and courting investors to bring them into the country.
“That is imperative.”
He said part of what sank the country into recession was the sharp drop in the production of oil.
Rewane said, “If the oil and gas production doesn’t come back up; if we do not bring down interest rate, as long that the central bank thinks that it is going to push up interest rate, this economy will not recover.
“They have to bring down interest rate immediately.”
“The earlier they do that, the better for everybody. When you do that, the currency will drop some more.
“But it doesn’t matter. The lower the currency, the more the investors will come in.”
The Monetary Policy Committee of the CBN had at the end of its last meeting raised the monetary policy rate (benchmark interest rate) to 14 per cent from 12 per cent.
The Chairman of the Board, Nigerian Economic Summit Group, Mr. Kyari Bukar, said:
“One of the fundamental things that I strongly believe in is that to get out of recession, government has to spend. Liquidity has to be in the economy.
“You don’t spend for the sake of spending; you invest.
“So, the capital side of the equation needs to be enhanced, even if it means in the short term.
“We are going to borrow.
“We have to spend on infrastructure that will be catalysts or enablers for many of the things that we need to grow our economy and get us out of this recession.”
A professor of financial economics at the University of Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, Leo Ukpong, said, “Definitely, we need a clear economic policy.
“It is bad economic policy that led to a recession, and to get out of it, we need a good economic policy.”
“I think the first thing that the government has to do is to design policies that will keep people in employment.
“We must have a very strong short-term and long-term economic growth policy.
“Short term is to start implementing the budget, especially the part that has to do with construction and privatisation.”
Leo said the CBN should reduce the benchmark interest rate “so that businesses can borrow and stay alive.
“I think the central bank has to rethink its interest rate policy,” he added.
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