Health
African Centre for Entrepreneurship and Information Development (ACIEDEV), a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), has called on Nigerians to key into the Federal Government’s stimulus intervention to the economy to forestall the country from slipping into recession as a result of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
Mr James Ugochukwu, Executive Director of ACIEDEV, stated this in a statement on Friday in Lafia, Nasarawa state.
NAN reports that since the outbreak of the Coronavirus, countries around the world have resorted to releasing stimulus plan, to sustain their economies and protect it against falling into recession.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) recently announced N1 trillion intervention in all critical sectors of the economy.
Ugochukwu said the CBN Intervention loan would salvage the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Nigerian economy through credit facility for Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and will protect businesses and the economy during the outbreak.
“Nigerians as well as small medium enterprises should take advantage of the measure provided by the CBN to contribute their quota and reduce the impact of the pandemic on the economy.
“Quick response and compliance of SMEs will reduce over reliance on oil revenue at this time,” he said.
Ugochukwu said the FG’s initiative is timely because the COVID-19 pandemic is crashing economies of countries the world over, hence the need for Nigerian SMEs to take full advantage of the intervention to aid the economy.
Ugochukwu added that a country like Nigeria whose economy revolves round oil production, needs to take proactive actionable steps to mitigate economic crisis in the face of dwindling oil prices in the international market due to the disease outbreak.
“As economic crisis looms due to sharp decline in global and Nigerian economy as a result of oil price fall, border closure as precautionary measures by countries and the rise in exchange rate, caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, fears are that the Nigerian economy might slip into crisis if businesses are not adequately supported.
“In the face of these outbreak, the CBNs move to inject money into the economy up to the tune of N1trn credit facility at an interest rate of Five per cent available to SMES and households affected by the outbreak is highly commendable and timely,” he said.
The Executive Director then called on CBN to come up with a framework to track and monitor disbursement and implementation of the loans to ensure that the facility is readily accessible and available to SMEs, who are deserving of these loans and not diverted to other purposes other than what it was meant for. (NAN)
– Mar. 21, 2020 @ 7:45 GMT |
Tags: COVID-19: NGO urges Nigerians to key into FG’s stimulus intervention
