Dr) Ifeanyi Okowa,the Governor of Delta State,has challenged accountants and other professionals to draw roadmap that would bail out the country from the current economic draw back.
Okowa, who spoke during a courtesy call to his office by the 56th President of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) Dame Onome Adewuyi and her delegation,said the roles of professionals in strengthening the nation’s economy can not be overemphasized.
He said Nigeria must begin to plan concerning its increasing population, explaining that without proper planning, rising population would continue to retard the country’s economic development and national growth.
According to him, many governments in Nigeria had virtually become fees and salary-paying states, leaving them with no money left for capital development, and its capital development that truly runs the economy of states and the nation.
He said budgets of the states and the Federal Government are characterised by huge recurrent expenditures in terms of payment of salaries, overhead, repayment and servicing of debts, leaving virtually very little for the development of the nation.
He added:”There has to be a mix between recurrent expenditure and capital expenditure. If we spend all our monies on recurrent expenditure without having a reasonable amount for capital expenditure, we will not be doing any good to the state and to our nation.The impact is not only on the states; at the level of Federal Government, it’s quite a problem because today, we are almost living virtually on borrowing to be able to execute capital projects.
“It’s a problem all of us have to look into and it’s something you can look into and offer your advice to both the Federal Government and the states.The challenge is there but there must be a process to address it on a gradual basis, because if we do not do so, we will be getting to a situation where we definitely embarrass ourselves as a nation and we hope that we don’t get to that point in the history of this nation,” Okowa said.
He added that as much as possible “Nigerians need to think about what we can do because we are busy everyday planning our expenditure without planning the population of the nation.
“A nation that continues to plan without planning its population is a nation that is not truly planning at all. It’s a big problem because we are in nation today where our economy is dwindling.
“We are not expanding the economy the way we thought we should be able to do, and then the economy is growing at a very low rate and the population of the nation is growing at a very high rate.
“There is no level of planning, no matter how intelligent that person is, that you can truly plan in such a space. I believe that it’s something that all of us who have the knowledge of planning must speak out to let this nation know that wherever we are at the moment there is need to begin to look very closely inward.’’
In her remarks, Dame Adewuyi had commended the governor for his administration’s massive investment and educational transformation, including the recent upgrade of three existing higher institutions to universities.
She said the nation’s resources can cater for its rising population if they are adequately managed and accounted for.
