GDP: NLC commends FG, calls for improved living conditions

The Nigeria Labour Congress on Tuesday commended the Federal Government for achieving the feat of economic rebasing, which placed Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product in 2013 at 89.22 per cent.
This was contained in a statement issued in Abuja by the congress’s Acting President, Promise Adewusi.
The congress, however, urged government to ensure that the figure translated into improved living conditions, jobs, revival of industries and improvement of internal security.
It noted that an economic growth without jobs and food on the table means nothing in reality.
The statement added: “As we commend the government for achieving the feat of economic rebasing, we urge it to ensure this figure translates into improved living conditions of its citizens.
“There should be jobs for our youths; industries must be revived; there should be improvement in the nation’s internal and national security.
“For those will be the measurable indices and indicators of an enlarging and progressive economy.
“As cheering as the news may be, congress was not completely swayed by the latest GDP figure, nationalist as it seems.
“Nigeria, being the biggest economy in Africa, ought to make no news if vital national statistics such as population, natural resources etc were to form the requisite assumptions for assessment.
“More importantly, an improved GDP will only make meaning to us in labour if it translates into improved living conditions for the ordinary Nigerian.”
The statement said that a GDP could not be said to have significantly improved if the industries were virtually shut and operating environment increasingly hostile.
It said that government should worry that the performance index of industries dropped from 46.08 per cent to 25.81 per cent.
The statement said that the service industry was more than 50 per cent doubled from 23.03 per cent.
It added that this certainly represented a significant change in the economy, a negative change that pointed to consumption to the exclusion of production.
The statement added that unemployment figures were frightening, stressing that the NLC found it necessary to warn, times without number, that government should urgently address the problem.
It said: “So far, nothing has illustrated this fear better than the recent Immigration recruitment tragedy.
“We therefore do not need any economist or diviner to tell us that life has improved, because it has not.”