15 October 2018 : The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank Group (WBG) annual meetings in Bali, Indonesia ended on Sunday, October 14, 2018.
The delegates representing Nigeria at the meetings included the Minister of Finance Zainab Ahmed, Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, Minister of Budget, Senator Udoma Udo Udoma, among others.
At the event, World Bank released its first Human capita index where Nigeria stands at 152 amongst 157 countries. Nigeria shared the bottom spot with countries like Chad, South Sudan, Niger, Mali, Liberia while Singapore topped the list, followed by South Korea, Japan and Hong Kong. The index is based on the health, education and survivability measures, future productivity and earnings potential for citizens of 157 of the World Bank’s member nations, and ultimately those countries’ potential economic growth.
This obviously is extremely depressing and hopefully will be a wake up all for the local government. Zainab Ahmed stated that the governments understand this is a result of the years of under-investment in human capital
Some major points discussed during the event were:
- Godwin Emefiele, Nigeria’s CBN governor strongly believes that the focus of the country is a stable Naira rather than building up foreign reserves as they cant afford another depreciation in the currency.
- Zainab Ahmed stressed that the country isn't ready to surge its taxes despite continuous calls by international organizations to do so. She also added that the government needs to widen the horizon of the economy and find ways to increase the revenue profile. She also commented that Nigeria’s major problem isn't that of debts, but of revenues. She also assured the international organization that the 2019 elections wont pose any threat to the country economic prospects.
Reporting for EasyKobo on Monday ,15 October 2018 in Lagos, Nigeria