NECA to FG: Rising Cost of Living Driving Organised Businesses, Nigerians into Hopelessness

*Pro-Tinubu protesters besiege N’Assembly, say president’s policies in right direction*Group asks Tinubu to review FX policy 

*Fuel price hike taking toll on Nigerians, PDP chieftain Tells FG 

Chuks Okocha, Sunday Aborisade in Abuja, Dike Onwuamaeze in Lagos and Sylvester Idowu in Warri

The Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA), yesterday, expressed concern that the rising cost of living in the country was driving Nigerians and businesses into hopelessness and having a negative impact on Nigeria’s poverty and production index.

This view was expressed in a press statement that was issued yesterday by the Director-General of NECA, Mr. Adewale-Smatt Oyerinde.
It stated that. “while we commend the removal of fuel subsidy, renewed efforts at curbing oil theft and the ongoing attempt to reform the tax administration system with the appointment of Mr. Taiwo Oyedele as chairman of the Tax Reform Committee, it is, however, important that government should take more drastic steps to stop the slide into hopelessness by Nigerians and indeed organised businesses.”

Adewale-Smatt added that “it is instructive to note that businesses and households are currently being over-stretched beyond their shock buffers. Already, there is a drag on business operation as production plans are persistently displaced by frequently changing factor costs, and households are constantly adjusting consumption to accommodate their inadequate real income.”

He averred that, “in the last one year we have witnessed perpetual rising inflation, commodity price instability, reduced industry capacity utilisation and a gradual dwindling of the purchasing power of Nigerians, all of which has further dragged many enterprises out of existence and Nigerians below the poverty lines.”
Oyerinde, therefore, advised that the current President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration should focus its policy plans to improve the living standards of the masses with deliberate and quick responses, “as it is obvious to all, there is rising agitation owing to the rising cost of living, compounded by the increasing cost of PMS and threat of increment in electricity tariff amongst others.”

He further suggested that, “at this breaking point, it is imperative for government to quickly take deliberate actions to mitigate the persistent rise in inflation so as to address the fast-accelerating cost of living in the country.
“Such actions may include price stability mechanisms, periodic feedback on the progress of the ongoing work at the refineries, reversal of the VAT on AGO (diesel), and suspension of the planned upward review of electricity tariff.
“More importantly, government must conclude all palliative measures, which we expect should provide some immediate respite to both individual and corporate citizens.”
Meanwhile, protesters under the aegis of Stand Up Nigeria stormed the National Assembly yesterday, in support of the fuel subsidy removal and the policies of the Tinubu’s administration.
They insisted that Tinubu acted in good faith to save the nation’s fragile economy from collapse.
They caused a slight disruption at the National Assembly’s main entrance.
The convener of the group, Sunday Attah, said his members decided to hit the streets to show solidarity with the president, over the removal of fuel subsidy.
He said the President made the right decision by removing the ‘canker worm’ that had eaten deep into the economy.
Attah said, “The announcement on the 29th May 2023, by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, that the subsidy on fuel has been removed has come with mixed feelings.
“While some have hailed it as apt and timely others have expressed reservation that it may cause further hardship on the citizenry.
“After observing the initial reaction to the measure and the attendant panic buying and other impacts on the socio-economic life of Nigerians, we wish to state that the President has done the right thing by removing the subsidy as the advantages of doing so outweigh the disadvantages.
“We believe other measures would follow that will make Nigerians willing to see the increase in the price of petroleum products as a necessary sacrifice for growing the economy.”

On the contrary, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, (HURIWA), yesterday, asked Tinubu to review the naira devaluation and the hurriedly executed removal of subsidy on petrol which it argued have impoverished millions of Nigerians in the last seven weeks since the president’s assumption of office.
HURIWA, in a statement by its National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, said it was painful that the Tinubu-led administration was totally disconnected from the masses and the harsh economic realities that over 200 million Nigerians have been subjected to in the last 50 days since the inauguration of the All Progressives Congress government.

HURIWA’s Onwubiko said, “President Bola Tinubu must quickly revise his straight jacket devaluation of Nigeria’s national currency to save the Naira from crashing to the crisis point that the Zimbabwean currency. Tinubu must act fast before Nigeria gets to that Zimbabwean situation.
“Tinubu must restore the people’s confidence in the financial system by naming a substantive CBN governor, and a minister of finance, and constitute a strong economic management team. It is not enough to declare state of emergency on food, or hand out N8,000 palliative to over 12 million households, the President must ensure that the high inflation stops.

“HURIWA also calls for comprehensive probe of the refineries and the humongous amount of public funds that went into the so-called turn around maintenance of the four refineries yet none is refining petrol making Nigeria to rely entire on imports which is a way to drive millions of Nigerians into desperate poverty.”
On his part, the Chairman of DAS Energy Services in Udu near Warri, Delta State, Chief Sunny Onuesoke, lamented that the hike in the pump price of petrol was taking a devastating toll on Nigerians.

Speaking with THISDAY, the former governorship aspirant on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state lambasted the APC-led federal government for putting the cart before the horse in the removal of fuel subsidy, describing the hardship accompanying the hike as terrible and unbearable.

Onuesoke faulted the methods applied by Tinubu and the APC in implementing the subsidy removal, noting that some cushioning measures should have been put in place before implementing the policy if the government was truly sincere and sensitive to the plight of its citizens.

“The hardship accompanying the recent fuel hike is terrible. Things are hard for Nigerians. Until our refineries start working, we are in for a difficult time. The government needs to act fast to ensure that those granted licences of modular refineries start off immediately,” he admonished.

“Two things are wrong with this subsidy removal that’s why we are here today. Firstly, insensitivity of the APC government to make a policy statement without a policy framework to cushion the effects of such policy.

“A serious government would have rolled out robust measures like an immediate upward review of our minimum wage, investment in intra and inter-state transport with alternative sources of energy like gas and electricity for power, revamping of our four refineries or outright privatization to encourage competition and also granting of a licence for modular refineries including investment in alternative sources of energy to bring about competition in the downstream sector.

“Secondly, insincerity on the part of the APC presidency by lying to Nigerians that the price of PMS would come down due to the interplay between the force of demand and supply,” he averred.