"Nigeria is suffering from resource curse" - Okonjo-Iweala

The Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has said the country appears to be suffering from resource curse, whereby a tiny elite benefits from the oil wealth, whereas the mass of people languish in abject poverty.

The finance minister, who said this in an interview posted on the website of the Council on Foreign Relations, Washington DC, noted that although since 2004, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) had tripled, largely due to oil revenue, the lifestyle perception of poverty had actually gone up because of rising inequality.

Okonjo-Iweala said: “The pace of growth should be faster. We should not be content with growing at an average of seven per cent.

“In order to make appreciable inroads out of poverty, like China did, we actually have to perform like China and grow at nine to 10 per cent a year. Because everybody else is growing at one per cent and some are contracting, seven per cent looks pretty good. But with the poverty problems we have, we actually have to grow faster.”

The minister insisted that the quality of growth in the country must also change.

“Our Gini coefficient has been going in the wrong direction. We don’t need the bulk of the growth being captured by a smaller segment of the population. We have to correct that by precisely pursuing growth in sectors that create jobs. That’s why agriculture is enormous,” she added.

She however stressed the need for the diversification of the economy.

“Nigeria has always talked about diversification, but we actually have to deliver it, and that is what this administration is doing. We’ve completely revamped the agricultural sector. Young people are now all trying to be involved,” she said.

“There’s a programme called Nagropreneurs -- not a very pretty name -- for young agricultural entrepreneurs, who are being supported. We are almost the largest rice importer in the world, and we mean to be self-sufficient by 2015,” she added.

Speaking on the development in the housing sector, Okonjo-Iweala pointed out that the recently launched Mortgage Refinance Company of Nigeria (MRC) would unleash growth on the sector.

“We have only 50,000 mortgages in this country of 170 million. Everybody tries to save over their lifetime to buy a house. There are no affordable mortgage rates. That’s not acceptable,” she said.

The finance minister disclosed that Nigeria being the largest recipient of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the continent has continued to attract a lot of companies.