By Chris Onuoha
A former Minister of Finance and erstwhile Managing Director of the World Bank, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, warns of difficult times ahead on the heels of looming global recession occasioned by the coronavirus pandemic. Excerpts of interview:
Oil prices have been going down and the consequences appear dire for Nigeria among many other oil producing countries. What is your perspective?
This is a really difficult situation now and I have always advocated same thing during a time when commodity prices were good, that is the truth. You now have to create what economists call buffers; during the time the prices are good, you save and you keep it so that when prices are down or bad, you have the savings to draw from.
And this is what many countries do and that’s what we were trying to advocate and still advocate in all the countries and continent that are dependent on commodities. If you look even in the Middle East, where you have countries like Kuwait,…
Source: Vanguard Newspaper
