• Thursday, April 25, 2024
businessday logo

BusinessDay

Mbonu suggests Nigeria invests in agric, real estate to mitigate impact of COVID-19

Edo govt urges strict compliance to COVID-19 protocols amid electioneering campaign

Chika Mbonu, Managing Director of KSBC advisory partners LTD has suggested that Nigeria looks into agriculture, real estate and possibly, IT reskilling.

He also advocated for more of digital banking, citing the massive crowding of banking halls on the first day of free movement after the lockdown had been called off. He mentioned that we had to be held accountable for the quality of leadership; asking that we find a way to get involved in the needed skills of the future.

He stated these during an intellectual session on VTv, which happened on Instagram Live hosted by Sam Chidoka.

Mbonu who is also a seasoned banker, and a trained engineer said Nigeria’s economy was already in distress before the pandemic came around, citing the GDP growth of the country being at 2% and how per capita growth was actually on the negative side.

Read also: Covid-19: Healthcare centres still lack access to hygiene facilities

He said that the country was still recovering from the recession when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and exacerbated the issues on ground.

He said he had analyzed two companies based on their correlation with what was on ground and realized that positive correlation to the issue was enough to cause a rise in profit and a negative one would be worst hit.

He mentioned that businesses with interests in logistics, telecommunications, etc., were among the top earners while those involved with people moving around, e.g. hospitality, aviation would emerge among the top losers.

Speaking on banking, he spoke about the falling volumes of transactions. He spoke on his analysis, saying that the businesses that fueled the major transactions were all closed up and as such, even digital transactions would not meet up. He then also entered offshore transactions, berating our dependence on oil, putting emphasis on the fact that we could not meet up with oil sales, predicting a backlog of salary payments to civil servants.

On a final note, he endorsed the VBank app, recommending it to everyone who was watching the interview. He mentioned that he would also be opening an account with the bank.