By Taiwo Hassan
Following the report by the Budget Office of the Federation that Nigeria spent a whopping N5.78 trillion on debt servicing in the first nine months of 2023, the Organised Private Sector (OPS) has warned the Federal Government to stop relying on the IMF, World Bank, EU for loans and economic advice as such loans are pushing more Nigerians into abject poverty.
The private sector group pointed out that realities had shown that underdeveloped nations that took loans from the institutions were struggling to pay back and defaulting enmass amidst macroeconomic challenges and hardships.
Speaking on behalf of the OPS in an interview with New Telegraph, a former President of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), Mr. Babatunde Ruwase, lamented the improper utilisation of the loans to uplift Nigerians’ standards of living.
Ruwase explained that seeking foreign loans was not a bad idea if it was channeled to building infrastructure and other social amenities that will uplift Nigerians positively. er LCCI president said: “If you look at America, you find out there are times the economy slows down, not to talk of countries we called the periphery, the peripheral formation like Nigeria, and others.
“And the state of our country today is such that poverty has deepened. “So any country that relies on the Brenton woods institutions, IMF, World Bank, for economic advice runs into problems and our country has run into this problem today because we are depending on the economic advice.
We are not doing anything to use our internal resources to run our economy, we depend on foreign groups to advise us.” Ruwase continued: “We depend on goods that come from outside, including toothpicks and pencils.
As far as pencil is imported, toothpicks are imported, whatever we do is imported and with these importation Nigeria is slipping deeper and deeper. “So there are a lot of things that causes poverty, but the major thing that causes poverty is the measures of the country’s economy.
Nigeria’s economy is dependent, it’s not independent, on what comes from outside.” According to him, “78 per cent of our foreign currency comes from oil. That is 78 per cent of our export is from oil.
And so we rely on the monies that we can make from outside. “There are certain things we are not taking note of. We have been misusing them, some of our people have been stealing them because those in government they use the instrumentality of their offices.
The instrumentality of government to steal our monies. “Up till today as I am talking to you, there was a popular army General known as Sanni Abacha. Sanni Abacha died in 1998, but the money that he stole in dollars and sent to US, France, Britain, Switzerland, are still being retrieved after his death.
“In fact, recently, we were told that another $150 million was discovered abroad again. So our leaders, especially the military, stole our monies and sent these monies offshore. So these are issues that aided poverty.
On funds mismanagement, he said: “We have been mismanaging our gifted resources. Our people want to drive the best o cars that we don’t produce. The NASS, each member I understand must have gotten N160 million just to buy one SUV bulletproof car, because they are our legislators.
“Meanwhile, we have not been encouraging or establishing our own companies that can manufacture cars. “In Nigeria, before they introduced SAP, we had companies that were assembling cars, Peugeot was assembled in Kaduna, Volkswagen was assembled in Lagos. In Enugu, there was Mercedes-Benz assembly plant.
“We had battery manufacturing companies, so there were a lot of companies and our people could go there. But now, those factories, those organisations are not working again.”
Source: New Telegraph