Tony Dara
“How can a country earn $300bn from crude oil sales since 2014, according to estimates by the NNPC and yet see more than 60 per cent of its population living in abject poverty?”
–Tabia Princewill in an article published on Vanguard website on Wednesday, February 22, 2017.
I want to join my fellow compatriots in pondering the above question posed by Tabia Princewill as quoted in the opening remark. The Federal Government and Central Bank of Nigeria have just sanctioned a new bazaar of the country’s hard earned forex. I see this as a sad development which will only serve to aggravate our dire economic situation.
Privileged Nigerians are being invited to queue up at forex tills to pick up dollars, pound sterling and euros for items of their desire at the expense of all Nigerians! These are the scarce resources that should go into our critical infrastructure and wider development.
Those who have the means have the right to spend their money on whatever their hearts desire. They should be free to send their children to school anywhere in the world and to go wherever they choose for medical tourism or simply for tourism. They are even free to spend their money on whatever frivolities that take their fancy. However, should all that be at the expense of the rest of the populace?
Literally, by the introduction of this forex bazaar, the government is providing champagne for the few while millions cannot afford “pure water”. It is hard to imagine how our brilliant economists and think-tank arrived at such a decision. Is there perhaps a conflict of interest issue here? Is it that the people making the decision are the ones who stand to gain the most from it? How else would anyone think this is the right way to go?
The “free” forex parents will be allowed to pick up can buy software licence for schools and universities for learning; it can buy other learning resources we do not have to support or modernise education in our country. These resources will be available to all Nigerians and not a select few who look down on what we have locally. Spending our hard earned forex on our educational institutions surely will improve standards and quality of our educational institutions, and continue to be a resource for upgrade to keep us in tune with prevailing standards in the world.
Allowing the privileged few to access forex for medical tourism denies our public health institutions and hospitals the vital resource to import technology, equipment and so many unavailable resources that make our doctors ineffective in Nigeria but excel when they go abroad. It is not a surprise that Nigerians leave the country for medical care only to be treated by a Nigerian doctor in a foreign land who could have been here at home had it been our hospitals are well-equipped. Do not be surprised either that hospital projects are made more expensive because the projects’ forex is sourced from the black market.
Contracts for infrastructure – roads, bridges, etc project should instead be the main beneficiaries of forex, government contractors should have access to forex to acquire foreign components of work to be carried on these projects, from technology to human resource and equipment.
Nigeria seems over the years even before 2014 quoted above to give away forex to privileged nationals for frivolities. I don’t even think that private businesses deserve forex from government for their businesses, because it is their business to fund whatever activity they have embarked on. Unless they would accept that government would determine the cost of the goods and services they produce or provide.
What is fair in my opinion and I am sure in the minds of many who know, is that those whose choices are foreign goods and services should pay for them themselves; they should not be assisted by the Nigerian state. What the government has done is no different than providing a Champagne dealer forex to pay for booze and intoxicants. The privileged are intoxicated with appeal for “Tokunbo”, and the silent and almost unknowing majority are paying.
Little wonder we are in recession, the government purchasing power is shrinking and will shrink further as they embark on this needless bazaar. Can you imagine what the hundreds of millions of dollars just released for
free distribution can do in the health sector?
The government should suspend and rethink this policy immediately and instead give priority to support only projects that pass a “need-test” in areas of common national interest of national infrastructure for transport, health, education, agriculture, security and defence. Through these, there is far more than enough to make the Nigerian economy a “fine-tuned machine”.
In other words, there must be a strict qualifying criterion for anyone to have access to forex earned by the Nigeria government, but surely not for school fees, health fees or travel tourism.
Whatever money Nigeria earns is our common wealth. It must be used to build our commonwealth and not be frittered away on a select few.
Dara contributed this piece from Lagos via [email protected]
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