Protest: We were not part of the process, agreement abinitio…TUC

 

…gives FG 2 weeks to begin importation of rice and food items.

….advises against the dictates of IMF, World Bank.

By AKOR SYLVESTER-Abuja

The Trade Union Congress (TUC) has clared air on its decision not to participate in Tuesday 27th and Wednesday 28th protest against hardship and hunger planned by the labour union, saying it was not part of the process and agreement to embark on the protest.

This is as the trade union asked the federal government to, within two weeks, begin importation of rice and other food items to first of all tackle hunger in the land before any other measures to stabilise the economy.

The TUC also warned government to stop taking advice from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and world bank over the present situation in the country.

The TUC president, Festus Osifo, in a press conference in Abuja yesterday, said the union has followed up with the situation in the country and resolved to recommend possible solutions to the government instead of embarking on protest.

He said even if workers go naked on the streets of Abuja and all over the country without government knowing what the issues are and the solutions to them, nothing will change.

The trade union president urged government to determine the real value of naira to dollar and urgently engage in policy that would crash the giant dollor.

He said allowing the official exchange rate to devalue alongside the black market rate that does not follow market fundamentals is not the right approach to accomplish this.

According to him, “Local and international financial institutions have determined the true value to be between N580 to N650 to a dollar in June/July 2023. The FG needs to work towards achieving this realistic rate. Once its achieved therefore, the exchange rate will then be adjusted on an annual basis using factor K that will be determined by US/NGN inflation figures. This adjustment can also be made every 6 months to avoid sudden shock. It does not make sense economically to allow Naira to float freely against an international currency that is in acute shortage of supply due to excessive demand.

“With this in place, investors could forecast the returns on their investments with some degree of certainty. This stability will result in the restoration of confidence in the market and foreign direct investors will monitor this stability over time before eventually returning to the country in droves.

“This can be easily implemented by CBN, who are the managers of our monetary policy, by directing banks to reject dollar bids above the threshold of N580/650. This was done between July and October 2023 when the exchange rate stabilized around 790 Naira to a dollar.

“The current surge in demand of USD is not just from manufacturers or importers of goods but also from students studying abroad, individuals engaging in medical tourism, those earning cash illicitly; as it has been noticed that there are a lot of corruptly earned cash chasing the Naira and they are willing to buy it at any price”.

On minimum wage, the TUC president said, “as established in the prior analysis, the value of the current national minimum wage is about 17USD hence there is an urgent need to hasten conversations around the new minimum wage for it to be passed into law.

“Faithful implementation of the new minimum wage by government at all levels and the private sector will help increase the disposable income of workers and thus their purchasing power.
3) Custom Exchange Rate for Goods used in Manufacturing.

“Today the exchange rate used by customs for clearing machinery, spare parts and other items that feed into manufacturing lines and processes, farm equipment, should be revised to between N580 to N650 to a dollar or at best a tax waiver should be given to some of these imported goods that are critical to the manufacturing and agricultural processes.

“Customs should focus on facilitating trade, rather than merely being revenue collection institution. It serves no good for customs to be reporting trillions of Naira as revenue when manufacturing companies and commercial farms across all sectors that would have been dependent on the cheaper cost of clearing input products and machineries are stiffened. These businesses could have the propensity of having huge profits that the government could tax and in turn, realize more revenue than what could have accrued from customs.

“We demand that this should be done within the next two week”.

The union president further said “allegation that sub Nationals throw billions of Dollars Monthly into the Parallel Market
Foreign exchange market watchers and analyst have all said that Naira depreciates further whenever FAAC allocation are shared amongst the three tiers of government. Some data have been provided to back this up by financial and economic analyst; this calls for further interrogation.

“The Economic and financial crime commission (EFCC) and National Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) should be immediately deployed to monitor the accounts of all those who are credited from FAAC allocations. All transfers to parallel market operators and bureau de change must be tracked and perpetrators brought to book.

“Such huge cash inflow has a high potential of distorting the market as they would want to buy USD no matter the cost because the cash is not earned.
5) Dollarization of Political Party Primaries and Electioneering.
There is no gainsaying the fact that political activities has been dollarized in our dear country. Almost all primaries of major political parties are dollarized. This recent Edo gubernatorial primaries wasn’t an exception by our investigation. This has added to the pressure our Naira currently faces.

“A food for thought” We have been an import dependent nation for several years. Even at a time when our crude production was relatively low, and oil sold for about 10 dollars per barrel, our Naira never ran riot the way it did in the past months. So what changed suddenly?

“Clamp down on speculative trading in the foreign exchange market.

“Government and the central bank should institutionalize policies that will deter speculators from striving to arm-twist the market by allowing a +-2% of official rate on their platform.

“In recent times we have seen a lot of online platforms where Nigerians exchange naira for dollars especially the Nigerians living in diaspora.

“The remittance from Nigerians in diaspora which used to be a major source of Foreign exchange has dwindled to nothing with the advent of outrageous rates on these platforms.

“Most Nigerians go to these platforms to benchmark rate for exchange instead of the official websites. There should be a ceiling as stated above on these platforms in order to prevent them from speculators and unscrupulously profiteers”.

Osifo said government at all levels must start promoting made in Nigeria goods.

He stated that governments must lead by example by immediately commencing the purchasing of locally made or locally assembled vehicles.

According to him, a framework must be quickly put in place to identify the goods that are produced in Nigeria and government at all levels must start patronizing them.

On the economic team, the TUC president said the Economic team of the federal government must be strengthened.

He maintained that the president must look beyond party or tribal line to head hunt the best Nigerians throughout the world who could sit down and develop home grown solutions to the menace.

“Reputable Nigerian economist and financial experts locally and internationally are abound to draw from.

“The tripartite economic management team that was set up yesterday by the federal government is commendable but most of these people are saddled with other responsibilities and could be easily distracted.

“The government should bring onboard great economist on a full time basis; that will work with the current government team on a daily basis and review issues and proffer practicable solutions to them”, he said.

The TUC president urged government to henceforth stop following the dictate of IMF and work bank to the latter but rather develop homegrown solutions to the economic woes.

He said the same IMF that advised the government to remove all forms of subsidies and float its currency was also the same institution that recently said that the hunger and hardship in the country have increased tremendously and that the government should do the needful, adding that “this is a double speak”.

On banks, the congress president said the CBN must immediately develop policies and systems that will effectively monitor FX transactions and effectively supervise the movement of FX trading on all the banking systems. He siad this will reduce excessive arbitrage that is currently obtainable. “Any defaulting institution must be sanctioned”, he said.

Speaking on curbing Crude Oil Theft and Increasing Investment in enhancing Oil and Gas Production, Osifo said “It is widely known that oil and gas exports have been the primary source of our foreign exchange earnings for many years. At its peak, we produced around 2.5 million barrels of crude oil equivalent per day. However, over time, this amount has drastically decreased to an abnormally low level. In January 2024, the crude oil production from the Nigeria Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) report was just above 1.4 million barrels per day.

“The majority of this reduction is due to crude theft, while a good percentage is attributed to the lack of investments by both indigenous and IOC oil and gas producers.

“In order to address this issue, the government needs to further instruct the industry regulator and security agencies to take immediate action against crude theft and bring those responsible to justice. Additionally, the provisions in the host communities’ section of the Petroleum Industry Act should be fully implemented to encourage these communities to take ownership of the oil and gas facilities.

“The able-bodied men from the host communities can also be enlisted as whistleblowers and work alongside the security agencies, as this has been proven to produce the best results.

“It is important to engage the CEOs of the indigenous companies and IOC in the producing subsector of the oil and gas industry in a frank conversation about what the government can do to encourage them to invest in production stimulation and enhancement. All the bottlenecks that hinder incremental production should be removed immediately, and incentives provided to encourage them to increase their respective production. This could be achieved within the next two weeks”.

On Insecurity and farmers, he said oncerted efforts should be made to curb the state of insecurity across the length and breadth of the country so that farmers could return to farm.

According to him, several literature are abound on what government across the three tiers could do to address this.

“The recent thought of state and community policing is long overdue and deliberate efforts must be made to conclude the necessary constitutional amendment to enable its take off in earnest.

“Temporary Importation of Food from Abroad
The quest for survival is real today than ever before; Nigerians must live to see tomorrow before we could understand how beautiful a government policy is. The national pride of striving to achieving food sufficiency locally and not importing from abroad should be temporarily relaxed.

“Government at all levels should immediately source and purchase sufficient quantities of food items from different part of the world and distribute to the vulnerable Nigerians. Importing food from abroad at this point will assist in reducing the hyperinflation on food that is currently been experienced locally. For example, the price of rice is above the roof today because government at all levels are chasing rice producers to buy the available rice. Thus with high demand and reduced or constant supply; prices will definitely soar.
TUC hereby demand that government should as a matter of urgency commence importation and allow importation of essential food items into the country within the next two weeks.
14) Task for States and Local Government
State government must immediately choose at least six different food crops to cultivate. Similarly, each local government must identify three food crops to cultivate. Now that we are approaching raining season, this must be done immediately in other to boost food production in the next few months.

“An emergency food coordination center between the federal and state government should be set up immediately to interface on the kind of crop to produce and the variety that will yield much more per hectare”, he said.

On local refinery of crude oil, the congress leadership said it visited the Port Harcourt Refinery about a week ago to inspect the state of rehabilitation of both the old and new refineries.

He said “We are demanding that crude production from the old Port Harcourt refinery must commence before the end of first quarter of 2024.

“We further demand that the Rehabilitation of the New Port Harcourt refinery, Warri refinery and Kaduna refinery must be expedited as we shall be closely monitoring progress and work completion as scheduled in the work breakdown structure.

“The congress leadership strongly believe that when all the solutions proffered above are implemented, the current challenges faced by Nigerian workers and indeed the downtrodden will ease off within the shortest possible time”.

The TUC president said the union will be submitting the document to government with a view of engaging them immediately to develop a framework for onward implementation.