By Polycarp Auta
Jos – Mr Viktor Kuchili, a consultant and public affairs analyst has advised the Federal Government to embark on aggressive savings for the future.
Kuchili gave the advice at a workshop organised by Centre for the Advocacy of Justice and Rights (CAJR) on Tuesday in Jos on the “Implementation of Strategy to Improve Public Awareness on Stabilisation Mechanism in Plateau”.
Kuchili decried the inability of Nigeria to make meaningful savings for the growth and development of the nation in the future, adding that such act poses serious threat to the nation.
According to him, the country had ample opportunity to save a lot of resources since 1974 when the economy was booming, but failed to do so.
“Every country that is responsible for growth and development of its own people naturally looks deeply at ways of saving its resources.
“Norway from 1970 saved over one trillion dollars, Saudi Arabia saved 500 billion dollars and Algeria saved 7.6 billion dollars.
“Unfortunately for us, Nigeria has had no opportunity to have saved on five different occasions since 1974 when we had booms in our revenue, and this is because 90 per cent of revenue for Nigeria comes from oil.
“It’s dangerous when a nation doesn’t understand that there is volatility when it lacks proper savings mechanism that will guarantee better future for its citizenry,” he said.
He added: “Nigeria must understand the need to save and ensure good funding mechanism that will help us stabilise the economy.
“We should not save only when we don’t have problems now, but we should save because of the problems that may arise in the future.”
Kuchili commended CAJR for organising the training, saying it would spur those in leadership position to save for the future (NAN)