OSBC Osun State Broadcasting Corporation
Worried by what it called ‘‘democratization of looting at local, state and national levels by various public officials’’, the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre, CSLAC, has noted that financial leakages, corruption, mismanagement, and diversion of public funds are the key signposts of Nigeria’s current economic situation as the present regime winds down.
Speaking on the sidelines of the just concluded 2023 edition of the World Bank Group, WBG, Spring meetings in Washington DC, United States of America, USA, Auwal Rafsanjani, the Executive Director of CSLAC, one of the groups from Africa at the meeting, told a select group of journalists that it is because of this pecuniary interest of the public office holders, both elected and appointed, that the outgoing government is not willing to run the system transparently, adding that this forms the basis of its recommendations for the in-coming government to be headed by Bola Tinubu.
According to him, ‘‘the civil society has come here (IMF/ World Bank meeting) to also advocate to the new incoming government to ensure that what they’re going to have must be a proper economic framework that can deal with issues of artificial induced poverty that some public officials have created for Nigerians; That the government must close all leakages that enable illicit financial flow out of Nigeria, using our financial system because of the failure of the financial regulations.
‘‘The economic policy framework that we have has been proven to be a disaster. It has not been able to address the numerous problems arising from inflation, even in terms of policy inconsistency that we have that is also as the result of the consequences of the lack of foresight and lack of having an economic management team that can help galvanise the economy, is all part of the problems that we are calling on the new administration to stay clear from.
‘‘So we want the new administration to make sure that the economic management team is put in place.
‘‘We also want the government to review the existing economic policy framework, so that we will not continue to repeat the kind of economic development setback for the country.
‘‘We want the incoming administration to also focus on diversification of the economy, not just on oil.
‘‘We want the incoming government to ensure that they also embark on industrialization because any country can only grow and develop when it is able to produce. We cannot be just consuming, we must make our factories, industries to work.
‘‘We must revitalize agriculture to be very productive because most of the materials that we are importing could actually enhance our agriculture to be effective and efficient to be able to give us the necessary materials to turn around the economy. It is absolutely necessary that the incoming administration looks at that aspect.
