Following the devaluation of the naira due to exchange rate unification, members of the Organised Private Sector (OPS) have urged President Bola Tinubu to ban the use of dollar for local transactions.
The OPS pointed out that the ban became necessary as it will strengthen the naira against the dollar in the foreign exchange market.
Speaking with New Telegraph, a member of the National Institute of Directors and also the Managing Director of Time Line Consults Limited, Shauibu Idris, said that government needed to regulate the overbearing usage of dollar as means of settlement for commodities in the country.
He noted that the dollarisation of the economy was adding more burdens to the devaluation of the naira and that the tide needs to be changed urgently by government.
Idris explained that if the current administration of President Bola Tinubu is committed to curbing excessive foreign exchange demands and strengthen naira, there is need for his administration to wage war on the arbitrary usage of dollar as a means of settlement in the country, especially in some sectors like oil and gas, education, manufacturing, telecoms and others.
According to him, the President should also have a rethink in the country’s approach of using dollars to pay salaries of diplomats and staff in embassies as well as tuition fees for students on scholarships in private tertiary institutions in the country.
On his part, the Chief Executive Officer of Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise (CPPE), Dr. Muda Yusuf, also stressed that government must put an end to the pricing of gas in dollars for domestic use, especially for manufacturers. ng to him, “necessary steps must be taken by government to put an end to this dollarisation framework to ensure a moderation in energy cost for the manufacturing sector.”
Similarly, the Director-General of Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Mr. Segun Ajayi-Kadir, indicated that the current leadership of President Tinubu must look into the astronomical increase in the price of natural gas in the country, whereby local manufacturers are paying for industrial gas with dollars.
According to him, Nigeria’s natural gas is now the highest in the world, as natural gas producers are accepting dollars from its members and this has led to more collapsed industries in the country
Ajayi-Kadir noted that there was need for the Federal Government and the general public to know the constraints manufacturers operating in the country were facing through the persistent increase in the price of natural gas used by its members to power their plants and machinery by the franchise.
This, according to MAN, has persisted for some time now and has reached a crisis dimension as most factories have stopped production and are about to shut their operations due to non-supply of gas to power their operations on one hand, and the current exorbitant and dollarisation pricing of the available ones.
He said: “Apparently, the country’s economy is passing through one of its greatest trials since its existence as nation. “It would be correct to say that these critical economic woes bedeviling the country in reality have created a lot of lacunas for the real sector of the economy, especially the manufacturing sector, which has been at the receiving end of the realities happening in the country.
“The reasons for all these economic challenges may be traced to the sharp drop in crude oil price at the global market, which has leaned the Federal Government’s revenue drive, thus flaring instability in the country’s macroeconomic sector.”
He added: “Specifically, the introduction of government’s economic intervention programmes, especially the monetary policies, into the country has significant disadvantage on the manufacturing sector as the policies in reality failed to impact positively on the sector’s growth in the country.”
Source: Opera News