Presidency Replies PDP On State Of The Nation’s Economy

The Peoples Democratic Party’s claim that the Nigerian economy is in trouble, has been described as untrue.

The claims were dismissed by the Presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu, in a statement,

He said “President Buhari remains the best hope for the Nigerian economy. The country needs change and this remains the person with the will and determination to deliver”.

According to Shehu, historically, there has been less economic activity during the electoral cycle,

Shehu, however, noted that in the second quarter of 2015, the economy grew by 2.35 percent and 3.96 percent in the first quarter of 2015 as compared to 5.94 percent in the fourth quarter of 2014.

Shehu said: “It is also noteworthy that capital importation into Nigeria grew by 216 percent in the first quarter of 2019 as compared to the last quarter of 2018.”

He further noted that the foreign portfolio investment, which is still a foreign investment, was 7.14 billion dollars in the first quarter of the year.

“A look at business pages in newspapers shows that there is a lot of business activity going on in the country. Two stories in today’s paper point to increasing economic activity.

“First is that the profit of UACN grew in the first half of this year by 61 percent.

“Second is that Business Day (pg1) states that cargo imports jumped by 21 percent in the first half of 2019. Increasing imports is a pointer to greater economic activity and the availability of foreign exchange with which to conduct business.

He also disclosed that the President had channeled unprecedented sums of money into infrastructure development, saying that capital spending had been kept at about 30 percent of annual budgets.

“Construction of roads, highways, public transport and airports have sharply increased. Government is spending heavily on power.

“This, combined with private sector investment has grown generation capacity to 13 megawatts”, Shehu added.