Boosting local content
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has said its blueprint for economic recovery includes pursuing deliberate policies that would guarantee single-digit commercial lending rate across all productive sectors, if re-elected into office in 2019.

The party promised that its economic blueprint would make a turnaround of the prevailing double digit permitted by the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led administration.

PDP National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, also disclosed that the party was planning to push policies that would engender increased local content in all critical sectors.

According to the party’s spokesman, this initiative is targeted at providing the much needed interventions in key sectors including power, agriculture, manufacturing, construction, real estate, transport, solid mineral mining, oil and gas, education, retailing, among others, without which the economy cannot rebound.

Ologbondiyan said “there is no way economic activities can rebound unless we put our people back to work. Over 20 million Nigerians have been put out of work by the APC and many more are underemployed. Families are under stress and citizens have been subjected to abject poverty by the Buhari administration.

“Our recovery plan involves a concerted effort to reopen the market and encourage economic environment that will grant our investors and entrepreneurs affordable credit facilities to favourably compete and thrive.”

According to the statement, there will be an “ immediate review of all tight monetary policies of the APC, including obnoxious foreign exchange and import regulations, multiple taxation, exorbitant tariffs on essential services, particularly in power and communication, as well as other unnecessary economic bottlenecks that are currently stifling small scale entrepreneurship, industrial activities and general economic growth.”

“Unlike the APC’s exclusionist style, the PDP will run an all-inclusive economic system that guarantees an open market operation and return a people-focused pricing regime.

This was part of the policy thrust with which the PDP grew our economy to become one of the fastest growing in the world before the unfortunate incursion of the APC.