Why Nigeria’s economy will never grow out of recession – Okonjo-Iweala

Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria’s former finance minister has stated that growth and development cannot be achieved in any country that has loopholes in its foreign exchange rates.
Okonjo-Iweala said this in reaction to the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele’s, promise that the nation’s ailing economy will be out of recession by the end of the third quarter of 2017
Okonjo-Iweala who spoke at the launch of ‘Beating the Odds: Jumpstarting Developing Countries’, a book written by Justin Yifu Lin and Celestin Monga in Ahmedabad, India, said there was no one way to growth and development, for any economy without putting some basic principles in place.
The former World Bank Managing Director said: “You can have development that takes specific country and context specific situations in hand and begin from there.”
“So, the proposals for industrial parks, industrial zones or what you want to call them as a way of kicking off development in a country fits within this context. For me, I think we should just absorb the lesson that there is no one correct answer to economic growth and development. There is no one path.
“There are some specific and fundamental principles that are important, which, if you do not observe, you will not take off. And I think, even with this, you would agree; if your prices are not right within the economy, it is still not going to work.
“And when I mean prices, I think like, if you have a distorted exchange rate regime, if you have very severe distortions within the economy, that are fundamental to macroeconomic stability, it is not going to work.
“So we can outline those principles, and say you need to observe certain principles; these are not conditionalities or 450 prescriptions we are talking about. They are just certain basic principles that underpin development,” she said.
The former Minister said the state also has a major role to play in achieving economic growth and development, emphasising that not all can be left to the market to do.