The Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce ,Industry, Mine and Agriculture (Naccima) has  expressed concern over the poor performance of the economy saying  that  life has become poor, nasty, brutish, and short for the citizenry.
The umbrella association of chambers of commerce in the country said “the macroeconomic performance since the beginning of the year 2011 has been relatively manageable; there has been no visible improvement in the living conditions of the citizens and businesses due to the harsh operating environment.”
According to Naccima, this is reflected in the major macro-economic indicators namely:   the rate of foreign exchange in the official market, which hovered around N151.6 to the US dollar at the beginning of 2011 and in the parallel market around N159 to the US dollar, remained relatively stable throughout the year.  However, in January 2012, the rate in the official market hovered around N161 and N162 to the US dollar while the parallel market rates hovered around N165 to the US dollar.
Similarly, interest rate show that the  wide gap between the savings and lending rates remains unabated as it continues to discourage investments and savings, while the cost of funds presently ranges from 15-30 per cent, depending on the profile of firms, and this has implications for the global competitiveness of Nigerian firms and their products.
The inflation rate fell from 12.1 per cent in January 2011 to 10.5 in November, 2011 (last reported figure from NBS). However, in January 2012, this have assumed an upward trend with the high cost of living caused by the partial fuel subsidy removal that has driven prices of goods and services up, especially food stuffs.  The purchasing power of the people and businesses alike has been depleted.
The real sector, according to Naccima, is faced with gross inadequacy of power, energy supply, poor transportation system, security and safety challenges, which together have continuously impacted negatively on capacity utilization in industries and performance of SMEs. There has been on the other hand noticeable improvement in this sector during the year. This is due largely to the activities in the agricultural sector.  The operating environment for business is still not sufficiently conducive or business friendly.
On 2012 national budget, Naccima said in a State of Nation press conference addressed by Dr. Herbert Ajayi, its national president, said the association welcome the various programmes/activities lined up by government towards achieving its policy objectives in 2012, and believe that government and the National Assembly will sincerely pursue and ensure the early passage and implementation of the budget for the overall benefit of the citizenry and the economy.
“Regarding Mr. President’s budget speech; I will rather suspend an appraisal for now since he has informed the citizens that the budget would be revised, in view of the partial fuel subsidy removal and other issues arising there-from,” he said. “Our association is in any case concerned about the need to embrace the opportunity for the country to have a realistic revised budget.  The revised budget should be seen as a social contract between the federal government and the people of Nigeria.  Hence, as win-win partner in progress we would to make the following recommendations:
Government should now do a thorough revision of the 2012 national budget already submitted to the Joint Session of the National Assembly. This is necessary so as to adequately reflect the present “mood of the nation”, arising from the partial fuel subsidy removal and the resulting prevailing tension, over issues.  It also wants government to correct the anomaly of wastage by drastically reducing the perceived high deficit figure of 23 per cent of the total budget, which worked out as N1.105 billion.