Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy Wale Edun’s deft avoidance of committing to stating when Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited will achieve production of the promised two million barrels of petroleum per day may signal the castle in the air that the Federal Government is building around the N70,000 Minimum National Wage recently signed with Organised Labour….READ FULL ARTICLE...READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE ▶▶
That information, necessary for planning, should be common knowledge among senior officials of the President Bola Tinubuadministration. While no one doubts his professional ability to plan Nigeria’s finance, Edun does not seem to know how Nigeria’s oil fields operate.
The minister, who may have been sent to take good tidings to pesky #EndBadGovernance protesters, who “peppered” the political atmosphere of Nigeria for 10 long days, clearly underestimates the trust deficit regarding governance in Nigeria. He should have anticipated that question and come prepared.
The Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria, apprehensive that the minimum wage train may shutter to an abrupt halt, is already threatening to shut down any state government that fails to pay the new wage. They are aware of the open secret that removal of fuel subsidy has delivered a windfall from the federation to the states and therefore suggest that state governments must plug all wastages and pay workers’ salaries regularly.
It is regrettable and borders on scandal that no one quite knows how many barrels of petroleum Nigeria produces daily. The several unfulfilled promises that becloud the source of the funds that the Federal Government, or indeed the federation, expects to get to pay the new minimum national wage, confer no confidence to the cagey words of the minister.
While Central Bank of Nigeria’s statistical bulletin reported that Nigeria’s Bonny Light crude petroleum sold at $85.78 per barrel in the first quarter of 2024, a clear $7.72 above the $77.96 benchmark fixed by government for the 2024 Budget, the price later dipped to $80. So, no one should rely on the price of crude petroleum that is unstable.
Interestingly, Nigeria’s foreign reserves rose to $34.14 billion in June 2024, but not through sale of crude petroleum or other exports. The foreign reserve was boosted by World Bank loans, with objectives to strengthen the Naira – to boost imports.
In May 2024, the Bureau of Public Enterprises announced that World Bank gave Nigeria a $500 million loan. Also, in June 2024, the World Bank announced a “combined $2.25 billion package (for) immediate financial and technical support to stabilise the Nigerian economy,” and make the Naira temporarily strong – to import more foreign goods.
The Federal Government must either come up with credible plans to ramp up petroleum production to the two million barrels per day and ensure that it is not stolen, or look elsewhere for the money to fund the new minimum wage.
While looking for a way out of the Minimum Wage dilemma, government cannot consider hiking taxation. That might reawaken the ghost of #EndSARS 2020, to join the fury of #EndBadGovernance 2024.
As the removal of subsidies from petrol and electricity and the floating of the Naira, with attendant escalating food inflation, continue to compound the cost of living crisis, the labour unions across the country have cause to worry that maybe state governors will not be able to pay the minimum wage after all.
And, predictably, Campaign for Democratic and Workers’ Rights is asking Organised Labour to mobilise workers to demand for downward review of the salaries of political office holders to match those of civil servants as well as full implementation of the N70,000 minimum wage across board.
If government does not make credible arrangements to guarantee payment of the minimum national wage, it may begin to appear like a con artist to the citizens. That is not too good for the image of a government that negotiated the minimum wage demanded by labour from N615,000 to N70,000.
The media reported a recent meeting between Minister Edun, Minister of State for Petroleum Resouces, Heineken Lokpobiri, NNPCL Group Managing Director Mele Kyari, Zacchaeus Adedeji of Federal Inland Revenue Service, and others, on President Tinubu’s directive to receive Naira for the sale of petroleum to local refineries.
If that meeting did not discuss modalities to achieve the two million barrels per day of petroleum production, we suggest a follow-up meeting….READ FULL ARTICLE
