 Welcome back to Business Insights. Now, Gospel, thanks for staying with us. The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, LCCI, has etched the federal government to take measures in response to the rising inflation and its impact on households. With the latest Consumer Price Index data released by the NBS, which indicates a continuous increase in inflation rates, LCCI recommends reducing taxes on essential food items. Gospel, do you share the LCCI stance on reducing taxes on essential food items to curb rising inflation? Well, LCCI represents the voice, the organized private sector voice of businesses in Nigeria. It's safe to say that some form of incentive has to go into the mainstream, considering the rising cost of doing business and the rising cost of living. So it's not just enough to say you're making it easier for businesses to run. You also need to make it easier for consumers to patronize, to buy, to facilitate that circular flow of money. There has to be a balancing out of how these incentives economy work. So I understand the position of the LCCI and it's a good position to take. Knowing fully well that at some point, we need to create relief initiatives that can help stakeholders along the value chain take on, because the idea is that if you relax taxation, it would also help, sort of like, you know, productivity help reduce the cost of business. Taking into account business and supply chain and raw materials are now more expensive. So it just means that you're taking the cost burden for the producer somewhere else on the value chain outside supply. So technically the assumption will be that once manufacturers or producers release the product, they can retain pricing per unit the same way they've always done, and not necessarily have to increase it because supply chain has increased. I didn't even know I mean so. That's the perspective I have to say the LCCI is coming from. However, it doesn't always happen like that, you know, because they've seen a huge lack of, you know, advocacy lack of data to measure up the impact of these policy proposals, you know, on the doing business landscape to a very large extent, you know. And we're also in the context where lots and lots of producers or businesses are thinking to make what we call abnormal profit. All right. You increase the price per unit of an item because raw materials have not been expensive or taxes have gone up. But regardless of what has gone up, you also double the price because you want to make enough window to have much cash flow into the business. And it's safe considering the volatile environment we are in right now in Nigeria, but it's still not the expected norm. Right. So if LCCI can take a step forward to, you know, lead some controls and regulatory processes around how these economies of reducing taxes to maintain profit and all that works, it's a good one. You know, I would say I would expect that the government would drive these reforms from a much more holistic perspective. Yeah. All right. As we run off now, Gospel, in May, headline inflation reached 202.41%, marking the fifth consecutive monthly rise while food inflation rose to 24.82% from the previous month of 24.61%. Well, the recent fuel subsidy removal, I'm sure that the figures for June would be higher. How do you mitigate all of that amidst the Naira Floats and the new foreign exchange regime? To be honest, Jay, it's a very complicated time. We are living in very complicated times and we are living in the core VUCA, VUCA reality, the volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. First off is the need for the government to envisage. You need to create scenarios of what will happen. So what will happen when you take this policy, when you do that, when you don't do that. And secondly, how coherent are these policies to start with? One of the reasons why our inflation numbers really got this bad was, take for the central bank for instance, there were a series of incoherent policies that were further destabilizing the environment. So one policy has to be reinforced, the growth and development of the policy or the business environment, not counter, you don't want counter-intuitive or counterproductive policies to be mentioned. Secondly, you also want to avoid unnecessarily making policy announcements that could turn the market behaviour, that could influence market behaviour in general. That's what we saw in the subsidy case and all of these things have to be taken into cognizance. The Nigerian context is not very complex and very sensitive. Any wrong pronouncements or a relay of inconsistent policies will hurt the economy so bad and we'll get to see it in inflation and all the economic variables. So first off is the need to revise the layout of policies that must be executed to get Niger to the next level. But however, ensuring these policies are coherent, such that one is enabling, not disenabling the other. Number two is to also rework the behaviour, the language, the public speaking and all of that, the public officials do not make statements and assertions that could trigger market behaviour, namely that the market is like this is my defence. That can happen right now in the Nigerian economy, you want to avoid that. Number three is to carry all the necessary stakeholders along in full consultation and that's a bit relative again because many of the decisions Nigeria needs right now to enable reform and all that will be very hard decisions to make, which is why lots of planning and rigorous scenario planning has to go into these policy choices, these policy statements and how you even execute them. More importantly, the timing of the execution and who is executing. So if you can begin to take cognizance of all of these dynamics as we go into managing policies for reforms in the new administration, hopefully we can get to see some form of improvement. However, I do not see inflation going down anytime soon because the backlog of policies and pronouncements have been enforced where we are today and it's going to get worse because it's not just those policies of pronouncements, it's also the fear of what may happen as a result of what's currently happening. I didn't even figure what I'm trying to say. So again, arguments around tripping, arguments on abnormal profits and demand supply, you know, this Equilibrium and all that will also reinforce that fear of what may happen. Planning binds also on the table due to this subsidy conversation. I mean the exchange rate is going high, nobody really knows what's going to happen. That fear is also enabling new waves of price increase into the market. So we can see the impact, not just for today but in the future. So lots of things have to be considered if we must find any drastic or strategic change in the scheme of these complexities. All right, thank you so much, I'm Gospel Obelli for your time and of course all of the useful insight that you always share. Would you appreciate them? Thank you Jay for having me. My pleasure. As we go on the show today, there is the need for professionals in the built environment to form strong advocacy against quackery and sharp practices that the tide of incest and building collapses in the country must be stemmed. Now these form part of the submission of stakeholders to the 13th edition of the Lagos Architect Forum. And this report, it brought together architect and other professionals to share thoughts on the theme, the city of Lagos, what is Lagos? My name is Justin Atadounia. I'll return again tomorrow and I'll leave you with details of that report. Bye for now. Lagos is the first capital of Nigeria known for its uniqueness as an economic hub, a high-flying business hub and a city that has long captivated people from all over the world. However, these architects have converged to share ideas and critical insights to effectively midwife a livable and sustainable Lagos state. We try to analyze the physical developments within the city of Lagos and see how we can get government to key into some of the suggestions that as professionals we think they should key into. When we talk of the thriving city in the world, these are cities that never sleep. What it is all about is to synergize, to interact with the private sector, the public sector. Lagos is the first capital of Nigeria known for its uniqueness as an economic hub, high-flying business hub and a city that has long captivated people from all over the world. However, these architects have converged to share ideas and critical insights to effectively midwife a livable and sustainable Lagos state. We try to analyze the physical developments within the city of Lagos and see how we can get government to key into some of the suggestions that as professionals we think they should key into. When we talk of the thriving city in the world, these are cities that never sleep. What it is all about is to synergize, to interact with the private sector, the public sector, the manufacturers, the suppliers of building materials. In recent times, incidences of building collapses have become recurring even with a CTS commercial as Lagos. As one wonders how these tight can be stemmed, government is advised to ensure monitoring as enforcement does not stop when approval is given. The professionals believe that state governments should domesticate a national building code as well as show political will to stop the menace. The building code actually has some compliance forms built into the document such that at various stages of the development of the building, you have relevant professionals signing off at different stages. Are we shining away from our responsibilities? Are we ready to take up our responsibilities? And to be honest with you, please be ready for more collapses because if we are not ready to do the right thing, then be sure that these tragedies will continue to occur. Until we can have a proper governance structure on the construction process where we start to track who designed, who supervises, what are the stages of construction, what are the stages of certification and it's available on a digital platform. This is why this is Lagos. The NIS shows that it will continue in its advocacy role as watchtowers to promote best practices in the building procurement process to avert ugly consequences of building failures and collapses.