By NAOMI UZOR

The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has appealed to the Federal Government to give the Bank of Agriculture the same level of attention currently being given to Bank of Industry.

The chamber also described the zero allocation to Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC,  as “inappropriate and disproportionate to shut down a major regulatory institution in the economy because of the alleged shortcoming of the Chief Executive.”

President of LCCI, Mr Goodie Ibru, who made the appeal, said that the agricultural sector presents a striking paradox in the Nigerian economy and accounts for 38 percent of the nations GDP and less than five percent of revenue.

“This underscores the low level of productivity and efficiency in the sector. The return on investment is very low and the income per head is also very low, which is why there is ravaging poverty in the agricultural communities, which are basically in the rural areas.

“It is therefore important to enhance productivity in the sector through improvement in market access, linkages with other sectors of the economy, investment in all year round farming and acceleration of mechanisation, Land reforms and access to funding. We appeal to government to give the Bank of Agriculture the same level of attention currently being given to Bank of Industry,” he said.

According to him, one of the biggest drawbacks to the development of the agricultural sector is funding, adding that credit access is a big challenge. This situation, he stressed, could be ascribed to the low productivity in the sector due partly to lack of capital.

“We urge the fiscal and monetary authorities to scale up the capitalisation of the Bank of Agriculture in order to fill this gap. We request that the kind of attention being given to the Bank of Industry should be extended to Bank of Agriculture” he stated.

According to him, the chamber has watched with keen interest and concern developments in the National Assembly vis-à-vis the Securities and Exchange Commission and few weeks ago, they appealed to the National Assembly, to allow the overriding interest of the Nation to supersede the desire to get an individual to vacate office.

“We should make a distinction between an individual and an institution. The latter is far more important than the former. We reiterate our position that there should be recourse to the provisions of the law to bring any erring public officer to justice. There are adequate apparatus of government to make this happen. It is inappropriate and disproportionate to shut down a major regulatory institution in the economy because of the alleged shortcoming of the Chief Executive” he said.