TheCable

Muiz Banire, chairman of the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON), says many federal ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) policies are a major cause of unemployment in the country.

Banire was featured as a guest on ‘Sunday Politics’, a programme that aired on Channels TV on Sunday.

The senior advocate of Nigeria (SAN) said some government policies can be blamed for the latest 33.3 percent unemployment figure published by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

“There seems to be policy conflict and policy somersault on the part of the government,” Banire said.

“On one hand, you have the ministry of humanitarian dealing with the issue of social investment schemes and trying to create employment and empower the people. On the other hand, you have so many agencies ensuring that people get jobless.

“For example, the agriculture sector is meant to absorb most of these jobless people. During COVID, a lot of the grains that is ought to ordinarily go into the production of poultry feeds had to be diverted into the sustenance of the people, during that period we have a situation where a lot of farmers cannot go into the farm to harvest the maize that is required which is the major component.

“You now suddenly wake up as a central bank saying you are banning the importation of maize without making alternative arrangements.

“Today, more than 70 percent of the small and medium-scale farmers are all gone, today they have vanished into the unemployment market.

“The customs itself frustrate a lot of investment and a lot of companies close down daily as a result of the various policies.

“All the policies come from the central bank and what they do in terms of the economy is experimentation. Today we have a policy but in two weeks time it is reversed and it goes on in cycles.

“No serious investor will come into an unstable environment. No economy grows in such an environment which will make unemployment continue to soar and inflation will continue to go up.

“There is a need to have a reconciliation of our policies, they must start acting in a concerted manner because we are not heading towards the right direction as people will continue to be thrown out of the market regularly and that’s the major challenge we have.

“The major thing to be done fundamentally is to get all the ministries, agencies coordinated in terms of policy direction.”

Banire said all hands must be on deck to take more people out of the poverty and stem insecurity in Nigeria.