Osinbajo reels out efforts to address COVID-19 economic fallouts

Nigeria’s Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo has reeled out efforts being made by the Federal Government to address the economic fallouts of the COVID-19 pandemic as business activities are set to resume on Monday.

Osinbajo who disclosed this while speaking at the 2020 edition of the ‘The Platform’ themed “Nigeria’s battle against COVID-19” at the weekend, said prioritizing use of local resources and creating local jobs in the construction and allied industry, amongst other things, will be critical in sustaining the economy in the post COVID-19 era.

He said: “We have to prioritize the use of local resources in all public works. In road construction for instance, it is cheaper to build concrete roads using limestone than spending resources on the importation of bitumen. We have limestone in abundance hence we should be looking in that direction. The road from the Apapa port to the Lagos –Ibadan expressway is being built with cement and is of high quality.

“In the housing sector where we have a huge deficit, we need to focus on using local resources to build houses and in the process we will be creating opportunities for young engineers, architects and builders etc.”

The Vice President also noted that the nation have been saved from huge forex burden of food imports and related activities due to government’s initial policies.

“We think that by ramping up agriculture, especially small holder agriculture and improving the value chain, especially in storage and processing facilities, more jobs will be created for many young people.

“We have found ourselves in a situation where we realize that the way to go is to support the creation of the jobs in agriculture and reduce food imports and ultimately address the issue of unemployment and food shortages. What we must do as much as we can is to change the narrative about Nigeria and provide more jobs”, he said.

The Vice President also explained that government will focus on improving productivity and improving food stock across the country as a way of further mitigating the fallouts of the COVID-19 pandemic such as inflation.

According to him, “if you can ramp up food production and the logistics of bringing food to the urban centres, inflation will be controlled to a large extent.”

Osinbajo further noted that the nation’s foreign exchange earnings and reserves will be improved upon if the nation can boost agricultural production for export purposes and supporting the mining sector.