'BAIL OUT WILL NOT SOLVE FINANCIAL SECTOR CRISES'

By NBF News

The cosmetic attempts at bailing out troubled companies and the financial sector would not fundamentally address the problems of the economy until the economy is protected from adverse social consequences of the vicious exploitation and manipulations by the advanced industrial world, the participants at Association of Senior Staff of Banks,Insurance and Financial Institutions (ASSBIFI) Triennial Delegates Conference have said.

They disclosed this at the association's 7th triennial delegate conference which held in Abeokuta, Ogun State recently.

''The focus of the economy must be re-directed towards providing food security and adaptable home-made small scale enterprises that prioritise the needs of the working and toiling people',' they said.

In a communiqué signed by the President of the union, Comrade Salako Sunday Olusoji, the participants said that for the fundamentals of our economy to take-off smoothly and, in the process for the nation to re-discover itself, we must prioritise 75 per cent of the nation's teeming population living in the rural areas; encourage agriculture and actively promote Small and Medium Scale Enterprises.

This, it said is the irreducible requirement for sustainable growth of any given society and a veritable tool to stop the rural-urban drift and the vicious cycle of crippling poverty.

It also observed that despite the important roles of these sectors to the economy whereby agriculture contributes 42% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Small Scale Enterprises are responsible for 70% of total formal employment,  the sectors attract a paltry sum of 1 and 3 percent of bank lending respectively.