Chief Executive, National Bureau of Statistics, Dr. Yemi Kale, on Wednesday
explained why Nigerians were not feeling the real impact of the positive
economic growth rate on their lives.
Kale attributed the non-impact of the exit from
recession on the citizens to the structure of the economy, which is still
largely driven by oil.
He said while the economy might have recorded a growth
rate of 0.55 per cent in overall Gross Domestic Product for the second quarter,
not all the sectors did well in terms of productivity.
For instance, the NBS boss explained that out of the 42
economic activities that were used to measure the GDP growth rate, 21 recorded
decline in productivity, while the rest performed better than they did in the
first quarter.
He said the 21 of those economic activities that
recorded slowdown in performance were those that ordinary Nigerians relate with
on daily basis.
For instance, the NBS boss said while the
manufacturing sector grew by 0.64 per cent in the second quarter, there were
some segments of the sector that did not do well.
He gave some of them as
manufacturing, which contracted by -10.88 per cent; motor vehicle and assembly,
which contracted by -19.72 per cent; electrical and electronics, which
contracted by -1.7 per cent; and chemical and pharmaceutical products, which
declined by -0.98 per cent.
In addition, wood and wood products
contracted by -2.09 per cent; pulp, paper and paper products, -1.85 per cent;
and cement, -4.16 per cent.
Kale explained, “Recession is not about the
price of your goods, not whether unemployment is going up or down, not whether
you have quality education, it’s purely your Gross Domestic Product; your
outputs of goods and services in the economy are going down.
“The GDP is
an accumulation of 46 different economic activities in Nigeria and the overall
number, whether positive or negative, will determine whether you are in
recession or out of recession.
“Now, within those 46 activities, some
sectors will do very well and will be positive; some will do badly, some will do
worse, and some will stay the same way they are.
“Depending on who you are in the society, what we
publish is the aggregated total of everybody. So, even in that same report, you
will see that 21 sectors were negative and there are other sectors that did
well.”
He advised that with the economy being out of recession,
there was a need for the government to work assiduously to ensure recovery by
taking the growth rate to where it was before the decline in performance. After
this is done, he said the next stage would be to sustain the growth and take it
beyond the rate of recovery.
