• Friday, March 29, 2024
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NESG urges govt to investigate $20bn missing oil money

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The Nigerian Summit Group (NESG) on Tuesday made a frantic call on the Federal Government to not only investigate the alleged $20 billion missing oil money but most importantly ensure that those indicted face the wrath of the law.

The NESG also floored the government on its laxed attitude towards the fight against corruption, saying efforts should be made at checking leakages and the rate of impunity with which funds meant for development are diverted into private pockets or misappropriated.

The Group, also yesterday and for the third year running, passionately appealed to the National Assembly to pass the pending Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB).

In a welcome address at the 20th Nigerian Economic Summit (NES#20), which opened yesterday in Abuja, NESG chairman, Foluso Phillips raised concerns that the leakages were eating deep into the nation’s economy with attendant destabilising effect.

L-R: Foluso Philips, Chairman NESG, Namadi Sambo, Vice President, Frank Nweke, DG NESG; Isa Aremu, vice President, Nigeria Labour Congress and Sola David-Borha, CEO Stanbic IBTC Holdings, during the Opening Ceremony of 20th Nigeria Economic Summit in Abuja, theme “Transforming Education Trough Partnerships for Global Competitiveness” picture by TUNDE ADENIYI.

The three-day summit, tagged “Transforming education through Partnerships for Global Competitive,” discusses issues around the nation’s dilapidating education system with recommendations that would help redress the decline.

In his speech, Phillips also raised concerns that the continued weakness of the local currency – the naira, was a consequence of falling reserves associated with the nation’s falling revenue.

The nation’s foreign reserves had fallen at a record $38 billion last week while Excess Crude Account (ECA), which served as fiscal buffer, had dipped to $1 billion before coming up to $3 billion after some $1.3 billion transfer from the Federation Account last week.

Phillips is worried that these reserves are even expected to fall further and that even though inflation

PIBhas slowed down to a single digit, settling at 7.7 percent in February, it is important to bring the rate to a level similar to the nation’s peers.

The local currency has come under immense pressure as of today, while monetary policy options are getting harder, he said, saying “if the continued leakage in oil revenue is not addressed and drastic steps are not taken to slow down or stop the deductions in our foreign exchange reserves, then the tightening of monetary conditions would be required to hold the value of our currency.

“This would have a negative impact on lending rates, aggravating the existing challenges faced by commerce and industry.”

He stressed that allowing the naira to weaken in response to these seemingly avoidable conditions would undermine the strategy of import substitute of which Nigeria’ economic development strategy is based.

Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, suspended governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, recently raised concern about $20 billion oil revenues unaccounted for.

The NESG chairman noted that while the real figure and magnitude of this alleged outright theft was still in contention, the point remained that million of Nigerians can not afford to loose even a kobo, considering the the huge development gap in the country.

“All these monies belong to the treasury and must be repatriated to the treasury,” he stated.

While the NESG commends the President for committing to thoroughly examine the allegations of these fiscal leakages, the body “strongly appeals, on behalf of the Nigerian populace that the outcome of this investigations be made public and more importantly,

Education still best legacy for every nation

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Onyinye Nwachukwu, Abujathose who are responsible are held accountable,” he said.

In his speech, he also noted that Nigeria as a country was not doing enough to stamp out corruption and not pursuing and penalising those who engage in corrupt practices.

The NESG believes in building institutions and structures, and processes that provide a sustainable war against corruption must be instituted, he said.

His words: “We need to have a much more collective and uncompromising approach to dealing with corruption. We need to come down much harder on culprits and stamp out the level of impunity that exists.

“Maintaining our economic stability will not be easy in an election year and our ability to meet our budgeted revenue could be tough based on the nation’s level of production.”

He however regretted that there had been too many investigations of this nature in the past but had remained inconclusive, saying the country was increasingly piling up domestic debts and that the attendant cost of financing such debts put pressure on interest rates.

On power, the chairman noted the effective conclusion of the power sector privatisation process, which hopes to bring a new era of improved power supply in the country.

He again raised concerns that despite the fact that private sector investors had taken over the distribution and generation companies, transmission remained a major challenge due to physical state of power infrastructure.

This is further compounded by the challenges to power generation with almost struggling gas supply system, he said, saying Nigerians expect the gains of the privatisation to be immediate but that “reality is that it may take three to five years to get sustainable power.”

He said that so much work and additional investments need to come in by the new owners who were also desperate to guarantee a wholesome return on their investments.

He went further to speak on the government’s infrastructure master plan, which has identified spending of up to $2.3 trillion over the next 40 years to move investments in infrastructure up to global standards.

Plan must not remain on the shelf but must be executed, he said, calling on the Planning Ministry to ensure that the plan is initiated and legislated for.

The PIB, he noted, contains provisions to redefine and change the oil and gas sector, and in line with the NESG to privatise the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and seize to be a wholly-owned government entity.

This, he said, would help make the corporation and entire oil industry more transparent and accountable to all Nigerians.

“We call the National Assembly not to fail the citizens they represent and have the courage and tenacity to pass the overdue PIB,” he urged.

The Boko-Haram insurgency is increasingly getting too much for the country to handle and causing much unanticipated harm as well as pipeline vandalism, which he said had remained a major challenge.

He noted that perhaps, the most critical challenge for the country at the moment was the lack of capacity to create human capital needed for national development.

He cited a recent survey on education and employability, which found out that up to 24 million jobs were needed to reduce the current unemployment level by half.

The NESG chair said in addition to this, labour remained another major challenge as the nation apparently lack the suitable skills to take up the jobs being created.

The NESG is therefore of the view that there is the need to take a review of the nation’s education system, which he said informed the choice of the theme of the conference.

“Our schools are producing graduates not fit for purpose and becoming the biggest challenge of all,” Phillips lamented, and recommended a Public Private Partnership to change the status quo as he noted that ongoing NES#20 was meant to achieve three things.

The purpose of the summit is basically to draw everyone’s attention to the fact that there is a major challenge that requires a major understanding of the nature while giving it urgent attention.

The second, he said, is to consider the capacity and capability to effect the necessary changes.

ONYINYE NWACHUKWU, Abuja