BY SUNNY CHUBA NWACHUKWU
The language and hope for the economic future of this country keep appearing increasingly worrisome, deeply discouraging and very frightening because, from all intents and purposes, as carefully and curiously observed by a lot of concerned watchers; and without prejudice to anybody, the corporate managers that run the affairs of governance in the land, are frankly not doing enough to protect, preserve and reposition the corporate entity on the path of sustainable growth. Virtually everything connected to the economic wellbeing of the citizenry seems to be getting worse by the day!
In all facets of governmental administrative engagements, the situation keeps drifting every blessed day. As a matter of fact, no sector of governance is left out. From the angle of security of lives and property, to the most unbearable state of the economy, indicated by the embarrassing height of rising inflation; to the poorly handled education and health sectors in the polity. What a nation, indeed?
At the turn of the year, 2022, the President approved and signed into law the national budget of N17.126 trillion, as passed by the National Assembly. The budget analysis should be a discussion for another day. But, a nagging aspect is the grievous insensitivity of the principal drivers of this nation’s economy; even as things continue to get worse in the light of unconscionable and uncontrolled financial bleeding in a reckless manner that seems to be driving the economy to total collapse.
It is unimaginable that the entire top management of the national oil company, NNPC Limited, will be watching this ailing economy waste as much as N4 trillion on a mere economic package called petroleum subsidy for the year 2022. This is a programme that has long been judged a “drain pipe” that is silently and gradually killing the economy; without any smart strategic action taken to stem it from further damage!
A subsidy on a single perishable item that does not add or contribute to the economic improvement of the nation (based on the fact that it is an inputed financial burden on imported item, that is never applied as a localised policy within the nation’s manufacturing sector, but on ‘imported labour’ for those foreign labour markets where our own crude is refined, at the expense of our ever growing and internally expansive unemployed labour market). A subsidy that is foolishly and stupidly spent on the transportation sub-sector!
One may begin to ask questions regarding economic development and the amount budgeted for capital development, education or the health sectors in that same 2022 national budget of N17.126 trillion? This hopeless and terrible waste that is very significant (as much as 23.4 percent of the entire national budget) to the national annual planned financial activities is clear evidence that the leaders care less, and are mindless of the sustainable future of this economy.
Yet, they keep engaging in unending external borrowings. Millions of mouths are permanently agape seeing what is happening; and the right commentators have been speaking out at various public forums in electronic and print media about this thoughtless spending spree that can never be sustainable, rather it is dragging the country to a point of precipice.
Solutions on how to urgently reverse the trend of continuous importation of refined petroleum products, obviously, appear not to be (in any way at all) in the dictionary of these drivers of the Nigerian economy. The whole arrangements on how to get government owned refineries currently being rehabilitated back producing, appear to be the least on their agenda. This is not to talk of a lack of dedication to the other privately owned small sized modular refineries in the country, judging from the slowness in the activities surrounding all of them. This is something that, if sincerely and seriously followed up, could reverse this dangerous wasteful trend and start contributing to economic revival through import substitution policy in the nation. Many thanks to the management of the Dangote Group that has successfully invested in a giant refinery with 650,000 barrels per day capacity. Although as a privately built facility that is situated on an Export Processing Zone (EPZ), this statutorily allows it to make autonomous decisions and company operational policies, including to freely market its products to any attractive global customers, without exclusivity or mandatory right to the local market.
On this singular segment of the national economy, the transportation sector, unless the same managers start fast to strategically reposition the entire marketing template of every locally refined crude (by forsaking any corrupt tendencies that could stand as an impediment against the national economic success), their entire efforts can never yield sustainable results towards economic improvement.
It is also suggested at this point, that the initiative of fabricating, locally, indigenous refining facilities (as a matter of urgency) should be embarked upon by the existing research institutes. They should be tasked with formulating a device that would replace the major cost centre of a conventional refinery, which is its Catalytic Converters. There are numerous potential indigenous investors in the oil industry that can respond positively once the aspect of security and other economic incentives that can attract them towards an assured short period of return on investment (ROI), if they commit their personal funds; attached to the ease of doing business policies in that sector, including cheap cost of entry into the industry, (a drastically reduced cost of indigenously constructed refining facility, as proposed above) and deregulation.
This is doable in this land.
Sunny Nwachukwu (Loyal Sigmite), PhD, a pure and applied chemist with an MBA in management, is an Onitsha based industrialist, a fellow of ICCON, and vice president, finance, Onitsha Chamber of Commerce. He can be reached on +234 803 318 2105 (text only) or schubltd@yahoo.com
Sunny Nwachukwu (Loyal Sigmite), PhD, a pure and applied chemist with an MBA in management, is an Onitsha based industrialist, a fellow of ICCON, and vice president, finance, Onitsha Chamber of Commerce. He can be reached on +234 803 318 2105 (text only) or schubltd@yahoo.com
When applause travels faster than hunger