For a nation that has already had one quarter of negative economic growth and is in danger of having another negative quarter (which would invariably put us officially in a recession), I was shocked, like many right thinking people, when the Federal Government extended the Eid-el-Fitr holidays which had initially been declared for Tuesday the 5th and Wednesday the 6th of July, 2016 to now include Thursday the 7th of July.
This record three day holiday effectively rendered the week beginning on Sunday July 3rd, 2016, a wasted week because Nigerians would naturally spend Monday the 4th preparing for the holiday and no right thinking person would expect any serious business to hold on Friday the 8th after the whole nation had been on holiday for the three days prior to that.
The economic implication of this decision is that when the Gross Domestic production of the third quarter of 2016 is being calculated, Nigeria would not be able to count on any meaningful production for one business week.
Flowing from the above, no one needs a crystal ball to predict that Nigeria is headed for another round of negative economic growth when the next quarterly GDP data is unveiled.
Yet this is the same country where 18,000 babies are born everyday and it is doubtful that up to 1,800 new jobs are created everyday. With this grim statistic, no one around the President thought it wise to advise him against making the small percentage of Nigerians who are employed to be underemployed by at least one week because of a holiday.
Is it that we do not understand the economic implications of our actions and how they effect the financial and economic well being of our nation?
Nigeria …Read More
Source:: Linda Ikeji Blog
