The Managing Director/Chief Executive, Dignity Finance and Investment Limited, Dr. Chijioke Ekechukwu, stated that it is only when the all sectors of Nigerian economy are doing well that the economy could be adjudged as performing.
Ekechukwu therefore called on the Federal Government to as a matter of urgency improve all sectors of the economy, adding that “if the sectors of the economy are not doing well, of course, the economy itself will not do well”.
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“But the problem that we see today is that we are not seeing any improvement in all these sectors of the economy,” he said.
He also said it will be difficult for the government to attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into the country when the, “local investors cannot even do business in the country.”
According to him, there are presently too many problems confronting businesses in the country, which the government had continued to pay deaf ears to.
Ekechukwu, the former Director General, Abuja Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI), particularly pointed out that the menace of multiple taxation at both the federal and states levels remained a major source of concern to investors especially start-ups.
He said: “When a new business starts and there are too many taxes coming on their heads, of course, you don’t expect that business to grow.
“Many times, taxes or levies we’ve never heard about will be imposed on businesses that are just starting today or tomorrow.”
He pointed out that though business opportunities abound for Nigerians, but the problems working against them are numerous and depressing.
“The cost of doing business is also there because you cannot do business where there’s no steady and affordable electricity,” he added.
According to him, the way forward for the economy is for the government to walk the talk and sincerely begin to address identified constraints in the business environment.
He said: “So what we need to do as a country is not to keep crying over the same things, we kept on crying for more than 50 years ago.
“If we have cried over certain things, we expect that after sometime, we solve those issues. If we have been solving the problems of Nigeria in the last 30 years, today we won’t be talking about electricity because they are even beyond 30 years.”
