I’ll Fight Obstacles Impeding Business Competitiveness

BY GODWIN OBI

President Bola Tinubu has assured Nigerians that he will do his best to create a hub for thriving investments and a globally competitive economy.

I will fight every obstacle that impedes business competitiveness in Nigeria and I will not hesitate to remove any clog hindering our path to making Nigeria a destination of choice for local and foreign investments,” the president said in his New Year address to Nigerians on Monday

Nigeria’s economy has been grappling with its overvalued currency which has continued to translate into a persistently high inflation rate as well as a high rate of unemployment and poverty that hasn’t slowed down despite several economic interventions,

Despite these economic downturns, President Tinubu mentioned that his hard-biting economic reforms were necessary to steer Nigeria on the right path.

“Over the past seven months of our administration, I have taken some difficult and yet necessary decisions to save our country from fiscal catastrophe.”

“One of those decisions was the removal of fuel subsidy which had become an unsustainable financial burden on our country for more than four decades. Another was the removal of the chokehold of a few people on our foreign exchange system that benefited only the rich and the most powerful among us. Without a doubt, these two decisions brought some discomfort to individuals, families and businesses,” the president said.

He equally stated that his administration had been hard at work to speed up service delivery in delivering reliable power generation and distribution

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The pact with Siemens Energy was initiated by then President Muhammadu Buhari had an original understanding to scale the country’s grid operational capacity from below 5,000 MW to 7,000 MW by 2021, expand it to 11,000 MW by 2023 and deliver 25,000 MW by 2025.

However, the effects of COVID-19 stalled progress.

“Having laid the groundwork of our economic recovery plans within the last seven months of 2023, we are now poised to accelerate the pace of our service delivery across sectors.”

“Just this past December during COP28 in Dubai, the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and I agreed and committed to a new deal to speed up the delivery of the Siemens Energy power project that will ultimately deliver a reliable supply of electricity to our homes and businesses under the Presidential Power Initiative which began in 2018.”

“Other power installation projects to strengthen the reliability of our transmission lines and optimise the integrity of our National grid are ongoing across the country,” he also said.

As to food security and supply, President Tinubu disclosed that agricultural initiatives had been instituted to maintain staple crop growth across thousands of arable lands within the country

“To ensure constant food supply, security and affordability, we will step up our plan to cultivate 500,000 hectares of farmlands across the country to grow maize, rice, wheat, millet and other staple crops.”

We launched the dry season farming with 120,000 hectares of land in Jigawa State last November under our National Wheat Development Programme.”

The President also reassured Nigerians of the commencement of refining activities in the year at the Dangote and Port Harcourt refineries.

“In 2024, we are moving a step further in our quest to restart local refining of petroleum products with Port Harcourt Refinery, and the Dangote Refinery which shall fully come on stream.”