President Bola Tinubu has been advised to fix all the country’s refineries and rejig the power sector as part of measures to recover and turn around the nation’s ailing economy.
A chieftain of All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ekiti State, Asipa Ayodeji Adarabierin, who gave the advice also counselled Mr President to look into the issue of currency swap between Nigeria (Naira) and China (Yuan).
Adarabierin who spoke during a chat with newsmen in Ado Ekiti on state of the nation noted that all Nigerians is feeling the heat of fuel subsidy removal urgent steps must be taken to ameliorate the economic hardship occasioned by the policy.
“When the policy was introduced by CBN, Nigerians were happy, because it not reasonable to be buying things from China to first convert our money to dollars and then Yuan . If there is an agreement that we can by from China of now, China to Nigerian currency is still less than 300 to 400 naira and most Nigerians are still importing goods from the area but because of corruption the policy was not allowed to see the light of the day.
“People that are buying dollars from forex price of 400 naira are selling it to the people at 700 naira are making huge money from it. We want to enjoined president Tinubu to ensure that the policy is revisited and implemented to the letter so that people can use Nigeria currency to import goods directly from from China without using dollars”.
The former APC House of Assembly aspirant who expressed hope and confidence that the situation will change for better outlined what the could be done to tackle the country’s economy challenges as “Firstly, our refineries have to be fixed, once this is done the marginal cost of fuel, transportation and importation will be reduced.
“Thereby, Nigeria will be consuming what they are producing, that is it won’t be a case of our crude oil is sent abroad for refining and sent back to be sold to us at higher cost. I read recently that the Port Harcourt refinery will commence operation before the end of the year and we hope and pray that Warri refinery too will soon start working. Although, the two refineries are operating below capacity, they were construction over forty years ago when our population was still under 100 million but now we are over 200 million, but when they start working to full capacity , that will help in cushioning the effects of fuel importation.”
He also identified the pressure on foreign exchange (forex) as one of the major problems of the nation’s economy, hinging this on the use of US dollars for the importation of fuel.
“If we start producing locally, the pressure on forex will be reduced drastically, there won’t be any need for Central Bank of Nigeria to be searching for dollars to import fuel again and this will improve our ailing economy.
“Also, there are some leakages occasioned by the oil theft in the Niger Delta. I read it that our oil production has dropped from 1.2m bpd to about 1m bpd that is a shortage of about of around 200 hundred thousand. So if we can work around that area, it will bring more forex earnings to the country”.
Addressing the power sector issue according to him will revitalize our manufacturing companies and help us to produce what we can consume in the country.
“It is sad that over 70% of what we are consuming now are being imported . This is not good for our economy, our country has been turned to a dumping site and are just consuming as nation but not producing.
“We will continue to have deficit balance of trade, since our imports are higher than our export, there will be pressure on the forex that is what is affecting our naira. With stable electricity, cottage and manufacturing companies will spring up. Sometime ago we heard that over 400 companies have closed down and others relocated to another countries. We have raw materials for textile industries in the country but almost all of them had ceased to exist because of the issue of power. If the power is fixed consumption and demand for fuel, diesel will reduce and industries will be stabilized, employment will be generated, internally generated revenue will increase and by this economy will boom”.
Adarabierin described sectors segmentization as the best way to distribute fuel subsidy removal palliatives to Nigerians.
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