Enugu State Governor, Peter Mbah has said that economic and financial inclusion is imperative in the effort to grow the nation’s economy, describing it as the secret of the exponential growth in the state’s Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), growth from N30bn a year to about N500bn at the moment.
According to Mbah, Nigeria’s desire for economic growth could only be realised through programmes and policies that target vulnerable Nigerians, insisting that the country could not pursue economic growth at the expense of its humanity.
Tasking the private sector on improvement in the digital infrastructure and fintech footprint penetration, the Governor, who spoke during the inauguration of the Presidential Committee on Economic and Financial Inclusion by the Vice President, Senator Kashim Shettima, and the sign-off ceremony for the investment commitment for the operationalisation of the Aso Accord at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, on Monday – yesterday, February 10 – said: “Economic and finance inclusion are for me, veritable pathways for growth and inclusive prosperity. After all, we are only largely as strong as the weakest among us. What economic inclusion means to us is that we cannot grow our economy at the expense of our common humanity, which means that we have to carry the weakest among us along. We have to design programmes and policies that target those vulnerable ones among us.”
A member of the Committee, Mbah, who commended President Bola Tinubu for the initiative, while thanking the Vice President for nominating him for the national assignment, pledging to give his best, added:
“That is where I will be charging the private sector to come up with a product paper that will see huge improvement in the digital infrastructure and also the fintech footprint penetration. That way, we are able to essentially provide financial services to those low ones in our society. So, I commend President Bola Tinubu very much for this initiative.
“As Governor, I get to be asked often how we were able to increase our revenue exponentially by over 1,000% from N30bn a year to now over N500bn. It is simple. I see economic and financial inclusion as a veritable platform to achieve our growth because one of the major things we have done to increase our revenue in Enugu State is essentially to ensure that everybody comes into the financial services net. We have not increased our tax rate. We have only expanded the tax net.
“So, the growth we seek is not going to happen because we wish it to happen. We are going to have to design programmes and policies for that to happen.
“Therefore, I indeed consider this as a call to national service and I pledge to devote my utmost to this noble objective.”
