The Presidency has described the Peoples Democratic Party’s assertion that the Nigerian economy is in trouble as untrue on Wednesday night.
Garba Shehu, the Presidential spokesman, in a statement, claimed “President Buhari remains the best hope for the Nigerian economy. The country needs change and this remains the person with the will and determination to deliver”.
He noted that in keeping with historical trends, there was less economic activity during the electoral cycle.
He, however, said that the economy grew by 2.35 per cent in second quarter of 2015 and 3.96 per cent in first quarter of 2015 as compared to 5.94 per cent in fourth quarter of 2014.
Shehu said:
”It is also noteworthy that capital importation into Nigeria grew by 216 per cent in the first quarter of 2019 as compared to the last quarter of 2018.”
”A look at business pages in newspapers shows that there is a lot of business activity going on in the country. Two stories in today’s paper point to increasing economic activity.
”First is that the profit of UACN grew in the first half of this year by 61 per cent.
”Second is that Business Day (pg1) states that cargo imports jumped by 21 per cent in the first half of 2019. Increasing imports is a pointer to greater economic activity and the availability of foreign exchange with which to conduct business.
The presidential aide observed that a major constraint to business was the Apapa gridlock which a number of companies had listed as the major impediment to doing business.
Shehu noted that this situation had been improved tremendously.
He revealed that, in his first 4 years, President Buhari improved relationships with China, the U.S. and Europe and had won their support for the administration’s development agenda.
He also disclosed that the President had channeled unprecedented sums of money into infrastructure development, saying that capital spending had been kept at about 30 per cent of annual budgets.
”Construction of roads, highways, public transport and airports have sharply increased. Government is spending heavily on power.
”This, combined with private sector investment has grown generation capacity to 13 megawatts”, he siad.
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