Rewane Warns Against Continued Retention of Current Interest Rates

An economist, Bismarck Rewane, said the most critical sectors to Nigerians are suffering and would continue to do so unless things change. 

“If we look at the growth numbers that came out recently, 14% growth was in the oil sector, then

we have insurance and some other areas where people are not employed.

“The sectors that employ people which are interest rate sectors are the ones that are actually slow and contracted; therefore I submit that if we don’t bring down interest rate (we have had 22 months of no change in interest rate) to stimulate and increase economic activity, then all of these things are going to…”

 “The underlined thing is that unemployment and underemployment has increased in all the three quarters that we have had positive growth. We have had higher unemployment. Therefore the sectors that are growing are not the ones that are employing.

“So we now have to shift emphasis and focus on areas where there is labour intensive activities, these people can create jobs.

 “The unemployed man becomes a dysfunctional member of the society who disrupts, who kidnaps and that destroys everything,” he said.

 ● Channels TV