FOR government to deliver better lives for the citizens, it must embrace economic development that lays emphasis on improvement on quality of lives as opposed to economic growth that derives its indices on the amount of money the country makes, irrespective of whether such improves people's welfare, according to the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC).
In its New Year message in Abuja Monday, the NLC President, Abdulwahed Omar, argued that Nigeria might remain the same economically in the New Year except high premium was placed on development paradigms that promote economic activities and make job generation possible.
He argued that the much-touted 6.5 per cent growth rate of the country in the first three quarters of the year was not far from economic rhetoric that added little meaning to the standard of living in the country.
Omar explained: "Our concern about this 'respectable economic growth' is that it does not translate into industrial development and better life for the Nigerian people. The economy continues to experience incessant factory closures, and with no visible industrial policy, has led to continuous informalisation of work and de-industrialisation.
"Unemployment has continued unabated, and hyper-inflationary pressure, which has been most severe in the food, energy and transport sub-sectors, have impoverished majority of Nigerians.
"Rather than throw up figures, which the World Bank has recently alleged are largely obsolete in Africa, the challenge should be to promote employment-generating growth so as to break away from the malady of jobless growth, evolve a sustainable industrial policy, as well as decisively tackle the menace of high cost of governance and pervasive corruption."
