Lists ways forward for economy

AN advice by Emir of Kano, Alhaji Sanusi Muhammadu Sanusi II, that Federal Government should further devalue the naira, has elicited criticism from Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) which cautioned President Muhammadu Buhari against any policy that may plunge the economy into crisis.

In a statement issued in Kaduna yesterday, the Deputy President of NLC, Comrade Issa Aremu, said “the Emir of Kano and former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Mallam Muhammadu Sanusi II was right to have advised the in-coming ministers against policy flattery of President Buhari. But the president must also be weary of policy dictatorship that will further undermine growth and development, and worsen poverty in the country.

There is no choice for the President between policy sycophancy and policy dictatorship and policy ambush. The policy recommendations of naira devaluation and removal of fuel subsidy by the respected emir amount to some policy dictatorships that must be rejected by President Buhari.

According to Labour, “Naira in recent time has lost its value drastically; and the existing devalued rate of N197 to a dollar has further eroded wage income of millions of workers (many with unpaid monthly salaries) worsening income poverty.
“Devaluation has also increased the cost of domestic production, fueled price inflation and undermined the competitiveness of locally surviving industry, leading to loss of existing few jobs. Further devaluation of the naira, as Emir Sanusi recommended, is an unacceptable exchange rate policy overkill.

Devaluation is a false economics in a non-exporting, import dependent economy like Nigeria. We import everything, including industrial inputs, while we export no industrial good that can take the advantage of devaluation.
“Emir Sanusi must rethink outside the box of neo-liberal IMF’s unhelpful policies of devaluation (which he commendably rejected as CBN governor). Nigeria needs a new paradigm of bold policy choices and new star-words in place of boring ideological mantra of devaluation and subsidy removal”.

On the way forward, Aremu said: “We must urgently re-industrialize, stop the criminal wholesale smuggling and dumping of inferior goods, lower the interest rate, ensure long-term development financing, de-subsidize the political/ruling class, reinvent refineries, put restrictions and outright ban on goods on which we have comparative advantages such as textiles, rice and poultry, re-invent the railways, re-electrify the country and create millions of decent work for youths who have proven to be vulnerable to insurgency, kidnapping and violent serial gangsterism”.

According to the NLC, “Nigeria needs holistic and bigger plan for development like China, India and EU, not micro- mutually destructive policies of devaluation and subsidy removal.

On the present policy initiatives by the Central Bank of Nigeria to address the liquidity problems of the nation’s domestic economy, the NLC said: “We support the bold measures of the CBN Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, in managing the scarce foreign reserve through restrictions on some frivolous imports.

Nigeria, more than any other nation, currently suffers huge capital inadequacy, with nation’s foreign-currency reserves sharply falling by some 27 percent to $29 billion since the end of last September. CBN measures aimed at capital application and capital control in line with its statutory objective will definitely enhance domestic production in place of unhelpful luxury imports.

“It will also save the nation the current capital flight averaging some N1.3 trillion ($6.5 billion) a year, (almost half of national budget) on unnecessary job-killing imports from private jets to rice, wheelbarrows and Indian incense, Geisha (canned fish) and toothpicks to eggs and bottled water. Central banks worldwide ensure public control of capital for development without which capital on the loose can finance underdevelopment, cocaine growing as well as finance
terrorism as America painfully came to realize in the wake of 9/11,” Labour said.

For President Buhari, fuel pricing is a matter of trust which he has creditably kept so far. The President should resist policy ambush. Nigerians voted for his commendable resolve to scrutinize so-called subsidy bills, ensure products’ supply and distribution.

Nigerians look forward to urgent fixing of the existing refineries, passage of PIB, reorganization and repositioning of the NNPC, reinvention of the downstream infrastructures of fuel production and distribution, an end to crude oil theft and provision of mass decent jobs, not outworn outcry of removal of so-called fuel subsidy.

Nobody should be more presidential than the elected President. The new administration should reject one-cap fits all policy dictate.
No substitute to good governance and employment generation. The new ministers will be judged based on new thinking they brought to governance in line with the electoral promises to promote the welfare and security of Nigerians. The honey moon is certainly over for the administration to deliver further on promises made,” NLC added.