By Richard Nzubechukwu
The Federal Government has been enjoined to give more listening attention to economic policies being advocated by the Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA).

Director General of the Nigerian British Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Olusola Obadimu, who made the call, said :“The President of the Federation needs to take the advocacy issues raised by the apex Chambers of Commerce into serious consideration both in drafting budget, formulating and implementing policies.”

Speaking exclusively with Vanguard, Mr. Obadimu argued that the chamber movement can do a lot more than it is doing now if the Federal Government gives the movement it due respect.

“NACCIMA can do a lot more in representing all chambers of commerce as well as harness growth in the manufacturing sector, if the Government listens to the voice of the movement.”

He lamented that a situation whereby “ NACCIMA is holding a function and invites the President,  he does not come, the Governor does not come, maybe a Commissioner or Minister will be in attendance. I don’t think that is enough respect, with all due respect to the parties involved.”

Stressing on the need for the President to attend functions organised by NACCIMA or other OPS bodies, Obadimu further noted : “the Nigerian  Economic Summit Group that tries to get the President to attend takes its activities to Abuja, but we know that Abuja is not the commercial nerve center of the country. This has been the case even in the last administration. Even in the Obasanjo administration, they waited until the government gives them a date before they fix their programmes.  He gave them dates twice and he never showed up and he was in Abuja.”

On his take on import ban, the DG said that recent policies of the Federal Government may not have yielded or brought about the desired change .

Obadimu noted that; “in the Manufacturing sector, up to 60 per cent of the companies have folded up and a lot of people have been thrown into the unemployment market. No government should disregard them, are they not citizens”

“Its like the tower of babel; how can  the government say  that it wants to create jobs while industries are folding up.  Some items that were banned, the government lifted ban on  them. What we see in all this is  that some aspect of Government policies are not working together for the common goal. We know the government does not have absolute wisdom, so it should listen more, take inputs from stakeholders in formulating and implementing policies that will affect them and the sector that they represent.”

“There is a visible gap in private sector advocacy and this has led to a healthy extent  the emergence of the Economic Summit group and other private sector groups, but a very vibrant voice from NACCIMA can supplant all these voices. I am not saying that they are not doing any thing, they are.”