The Nigeria Economic Summit Group (NESG), a private sector-led think-tank and policy advocacy group, has proposed a ten-point action plan under an integrated strategy for revenue optimisation, expenditure efficiency and public debt management.
The action plan was contained in a report submitted in Abuja, yesterday, to the Debt Management Office (DMO) under the auspices of Debt Management Roundtable (DMR), an initiative of the NESG and Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA).
The NESG chief executive, ‘Laoye Jaiyeola in a statement highlighted the depth of research and sub-regional collaboration involved in the production of the report, as well as its significance for sustainable debt management across the West Africa sub- region, if implemented.
“At the NESG, our mission is an open, inclusive, sustainable and globally competitive economy. We champion sustainable debt management because unsustainable public debt accumulation is inimical to economic growth, not only in Nigeria but ECOWAS as a whole.
“Nigeria is a focal point for debt sustainability, considering that the country accounts for 50 per cent and 67 per cent of the region’s total debt and GDP respectively.
This behoves us to adopt more sustainable strategies to create the required fiscal space for national development, with positive knock-on effects in other ECOWAS nations.”
The presentation was graced by stakeholders from Nigeria’s public and private sectors, including Dr. Abel Essien of the ECOWAS Commission; Paul Adeyeye, OSIWA and Zainab Mangga, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Country Office, among others.
