…Warns against speculators in new forex regime
By Bimbola Oyesola, Geneva, Switzerland, [email protected]
Against the backdrop of the petrol subsidy removal and what may be government’s next moves on the nation’s refineries, the Trade Union Congress (TUC) has vowed to resist the selling of the nation’s refineries to friends and cronies of government.
It also warned the Federal Government to beware of speculators in the new step to collapse the foreign exchange rate to a single window.
Speaking with journalists in Geneva, Switzerland, at the 111th International Labour Conference (ILC), president of TUC, Festus Osifo, explained that Nigeria would not have had to face currency problems, if the nation’s four refineries were working optimally.
He insisted that it was high time the new government put the local refineries in order to generate sufficient forex for the nation.
He said the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN), where he doubles as the president, was not totally against removal of subsidy, provided the local refineries are made to work.
“Our advocacy is that the refineries should work and government should go the way of the NLNG, where government will have less shares of 49 percent and the investors 51 percent, instead of selling it to their friends and cronies,” he said.
The labour leader, who said there was plan by the organised labour to visit the refineries, vowed that TUC would not allow government to dispose of the refineries anyhow.
“We are going to resist government selling refineries to their friends and cronies but will support the NLNG model. It is the way to go,” he insisted.
Commending President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for taking the bold steps on the unification of forex rates, he urged the President not to allow speculators to determine the exchange rates.
Osifo noted that the steps taken by government will in no small measure assist in fixing the nations’ battered economy.
“We have been advocating against the issue of multiple exchange rates, because it’s actually killing our economy. In the last eight years, it is a single item that has affected our monetary and fiscal policy as a country. It has affected us on all ends,” he said.
Osifo advocated that, for it to succeed, there must be some fundamentals while unifying to checkmate the speculators from having a field day.
He averred that, if by unifying on a single day the exchange rate of naira to dollar jumped to N750 in the bank, then it became necessary for government to set some machinery in motion, else in a few days, speculators would hijack it and push it to N900.
He said it would not have been an issue if Nigeria was producing locally.
“No country in the world allows its currency to be left anyhow. Government must not allow speculators to determine what the exchange rate will be. If government doesn’t have a rein over it, speculators will take advantage of it,” he said.
The TUC president, lamenting that the multiple exchange rate makes millionaire overnight, insisted that the new single window should be allowed to succeed through keeping speculators at bay.
He said, “There’s no country that develops overnight. The way our currency has been managed over the years is appalling. No country develops like that, where people do money tripping and take advantage of our system.
“We are against a situation where people make so much money overnight. We are against a situation where people make N300 to N400 gain over a dollar by crossing to another window and become a billionaire overnight. It is not acceptable.
“We are of the opinion that, for wealth to be created, you have to work. Hence some fundamentals and parameters must be put in place.”