3-IN-1 STORY: Exporters Ask FG To Seek Loan From Wealthy Nigerians; Recession: Ekweremadu, Akume, Kick Against Assets Sale; Labour Vows To Resist Sales Of National Assets

Joseph Idiong, director-general of the Association of Nigerian Exporters, has advised the federal government to request Nigerians with oil blocks for single digit interest loans to address the current recession in the country.

News Agency of Nigeria report continues:

Idiong gave the advice in an interview with NAN in Abuja on Wednesday.

“The privileged few who were favoured with petroleum blocks, crude oil sales and petroleum subsidy licences should be approached to grant single digit interest loans to Federal Government,” he said.

“This will be part of their way of giving back to society.”

Idiong said such Nigerians should also be patriotic enough to invest in export-oriented manufacturing and petrochemical industries than investing in shopping plazas selling imported products.

He described as fraudulent the act of selling public assets to debtors who take local bank loan on personal recognition.

Idiong maintained that such people who would bank liquidity ended up using the public assets as their loan collateral.

In a recent interview, Aliko Dangote, president of Dangote Group, advised that selling government’s assets could be the best way to get the country out of recession.

Dangote called on the federal government to consider selling the Nigerian Liquified Natural Gas and other dormant but huge capital-generating assets and invest the proceeds in the economy.

Recession: Ekweremadu, Akume, Kick Against Assets Sale

News Agency of Nigeria reports that some senators on Wednesday kicked against the call by some Nigerians for the sale of the nation’s assets as a means of surviving the current economic recession.

The senators, who spoke on the floor of the senate during a debate on the state of the economy, also called for constitutional amendment to stop sharing of all revenue accruable to the federation account.

Business mogul, Aliko Dangote, had called for the sale of the assets.

Senate President Bukola Saraki also made the call in his welcome address at the resumption of legislative activities by the Senate on Tuesday.

However, the deputy Senate President, Ike Ekwerenmadu, and George Akume, cautioned against the sale of the assets during the debate.

According to them, no country resorts to selling its assets as a way out of economic recession.

Mr. Ekwerenmadu said: “UAE does not even allow you close to oil wells let alone selling them.

“For a country like Saudi Arabia, its budget each year is run by investments from oil revenue.

“Other countries are investing; I am sure we will not be fair to the next generation if we sell off our assets.

“If we must sell, we have to sell the non-performing assets so that people can turn them around and create employment.”

He said the recession had buttressed the importance of savings, and called for amendment of the revenue sharing formula between the federal and state governments to encourage savings.

“We need to amend Section 162 especially from 3,4,5,6 where each money in the federation account is made to be shared,” he said.

Commenting, Mr. Akume advised Nigerians to refrain from calling for assets sale.

He said that the country should focus on recovering stolen funds.

“If we want to sell our oil assets at this time when the price of oil crashed, how much are we going to realize?

“We are making a mistake here; what we are doing is to ensure that those who are within the bracket of the stolen dollars will still come to buy,’’ he said.

Mr. Akume said the country should rather focus on industrialization through agriculture.

The senator also called for the review of the revenue sharing formula to encourage savings, saying states should not insist on sharing revenue.

Mr. Shehu Sani (APC Kaduna Central) also urged the review of the revenue sharing formula.

He said that sharing all revenues contributed to Nigeria’s economic crisis.

“The situation whereby states come to Abuja every month to collect cheques and then go back to execute capital and recurrent expenditure has made impossible any initiative to boost our economy,” he said.

Mr. Sani called on state governments to look into ways to improve their internally generated revenue rather than relying on the federal allocation.

Labour Vows To Resist Sales Of National Assets

Organized Labour warned yesterday that the Federal Government should reject the clamour for the sale of the nation’s assets to fight the recession.

The Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) described those pushing for the measure as enemies of the country, who are only bent on acquiring the nation’s assets for their personal use.

NLC President Ayuba Wabba told The Nation in an interview that the congress was against the suggestion that the Federal Government should sell off national assets to address challenges.

To Wabba, experience has shown that privatization has not worked. Most of the national assets Nigeria sold off have not done well; selling off the assets will not be in the interest of Nigerians, he said.

Said the NLC chief: “First, most of our national assets they have sold under the banner of privatization, none of them has succeeded. Many countries of the world has passed through this same period of recession and their approach to addressing the issue is not to sell their commonwealth, leaving them in the hands of a very few.

“It is worrisome that those canvassing for this are looking forward to buying these assets themselves. I don’t think it will be productive for us as a nation to dispose of these assets to meet short time need. It will certainly not be productive and not in the interest of the larger Nigerian public.

“As NLC, we are against the sale of those assets because we have tried it even in the power sector and the result is very obvious. Those people are looking for opportunity to buy those assets themselves. We are against it, especially selling them to individuals.

“In the past, they were sold at give away price and people just amassed them for themselves.

“There can be a coexistence with people coming to invest side by side and for the government to strategically hold on to these assets. NLC is totally against the sale of these assets in the name of trying to address a short time need to address the challenges we are passing through. That is not what other countries have done.”

Wabba said should the government listen to the proposal and sell off the assets, organized labour will lock down the nation until the decision is reversed. “If they go ahead to sell the assets, we will protest. We have done that in the past,” he said.

“When it comes to selling off our national assets, if you remember, there was a time when they tried to sell the refineries when Obasanjo left office. We protested against it and that was how that decision was reversed. It is not as if these assets cannot add value, but because they have not been allowed to operate maximally.

“Take the refineries, for example. Our refineries are still among the newest in the world and so, if we add value to them, it is possible for the refineries to stop importation. It is because of inherent corruption that these refineries have not been allowed to work.

“Instead of addressing the corruption, what they did was to shift the onus to the larger Nigerian people without addressing the inherent challenges in the system.

“Our position is very clear and that is the fact that we are against their sales because they are for our children and generations yet unborn. We will be doing a lot of disservice if we sell such items. How are we sure that if we sell them, it will address the current challenges.”

Wabba said the congress made its position on how to get the economy back on track known to the President.

He said: “So, we must look at our fiscal policy, we must restructure our fiscal policies and try to work towards production  and ensure that we are able to stimulate economic activities, considering the fact that a lot of savings have been made from recoveries made as a result of funds that were taken away as a result of corruption.

“These funds should be deployed immediately to stimulate economic activities. It is also very key to stabilize our power sector because no economy can move forward or engage in meaningful production without stable power supply. ”