Having applauded several reforms by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the World Bank on Wednesday urged the government to take a bold step forward by moving from reforms to results.
The Bank stated this in its December 2023 edition of the Nigeria Development Update (NDU), titled: Turning the Corner.
The latest NDU report by the bank recommends specific actions required to further sustain and achieve the full benefits of reforms already embarked on by the government.
From the year 2024 and the years after it, the bank advised Nigeria to improve the stability of the foreign exchange market, achieve fiscal consolidation by sustaining savings from PMS subsidy reforms and improve non-oil revenues.
It also advised that Nigeria should address structural barriers to growth which have been standing between the country and its potentials by removing trade barriers and make it a country to be courted by others across the world.
The bank said the government of Nigeria avoided a fiscal cliff by implementing bold reforms, including ending the gasoline (premium motor spirit, PMS) subsidy, and shifting to a unified, market-reflective foreign exchange (FX) rate.
These essential reforms entail painful adjustments. They have led to an increase of retail gasoline prices by an average of 163 percent. The naira has depreciated against the US dollar by approximately 41 percent in the official market and by about 30 percent in the parallel market.
To reap the benefits of the bold reforms and difficult but necessary economic adjustments now underway, the bank said it is essential to sustain and fully implement the reforms and take complementary actions.
The report added that the recently launched cash transfer intervention to cushion the impact of increased gasoline prices on the poor and vulnerable is providing welcome relief to a growing number of households, with five million households expected to be covered by the end of December.
