Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr Wale Edun, says President Bola Tinubu is empathetic and committed to minimising the pains of economic reforms on Nigerians.
Edun gave the assurance at the 2023 Annual Directors Conference of the Chartered Institute of Directors Nigeria (CIoD) on Thursday in Abuja.
The event had as its theme: “Driving Nigeria’s Economic Transformation and Diversification: “The Role of Corporate Governance”.
He said the economic reforms were necessary and its benefits will take some time to materialize, adding that the Nigerian economy was already diversified, but its source of foreign revenue was not fully diversified.
The minister said there is not enough foreign exchange savings to give the country the positive balance of trade, hence the need for export earnings to be greater than import expenditure to stabilise the currency.
“The agenda is to provide first and foremost a stable economy, growing more than population growth, with low inflation, stable foreign exchange to enable investments in productive activities.
“This is what the President is working on and we are a work in progress and we look forward to the task at hand.
“The big price is to make ourselves a formidable economy, our institutions a corporate governance place so that those interested in investing can have trust in their investment.
“The IoD has a major role to play in championing corporate governance so we have a clean lead corporate sector which the world can come and partner for growth and progress,” he said.
The Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Dr Doris Uzoka-Anite, said ethical corporate governance was a critical building block of diversification and economic transformation.
Uzoka-Anite revealed that President Tinubu was working to develop a robust monitoring and evaluation framework across all Ministries, Departments and Agencies to facilitate economic development.
“This is a call to action for us all to play our parts in driving economic growth and stability via good corporate governance.
“It is established that countries with a well functional corporate governance framework experience more growth rate.
“Nigeria is blessed with abundant natural resources but continues to face significant challenges in realising economic development.
“This is where the role of corporate governance comes in and the CIoD has a vital role to play in this regard by living by example and upholding the highest standards of accountability and transparency,” she said.
