VAT, vassal states and restructuring (2)

“Almost two years since his hare-brained twin policies, market forces are yet to fully determine the prices of petroleum products and the price of the Naira… The irony right now is that there are claims that the country is turning the corner, and that good days are on the horizon. Tinubu says so.” THERE are too many things wrong with the regime of Nigeria’s president, Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu. For 18 months since the advent of the administration, it has been a case of stumbling from one problem to the other. The tragedy is that almost all the challenges that this regime has been grappling with were self-inflicted. It started off with an ill-conceived petrol subsidy removal, and it followed that almost immediately with allowing the national currency, the Naira, to be floated. Both policies turned out to be disastrous because the so-called petrol subsidy payment persisted in an opaque manner, and subsidizing the Naira did abate. Recently, the state oil corporation, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) insisted that it will continue to import petroleum products in spite of the existence of a domestic producer, Dangote Refinery and Petrochemical Company, Lagos, which said that it has the capacity to satisfy domestic consumption for petroleum products. Dangote’s 650,000 barrels of crude oil per day production should on full stream produce 50 million litres of petrol and 15 million litres of diesel per day. READ ALSO: THREE TRAGICALLY KILLED AFTER GOOGLE MAPS DIRECT CAR ONTO UNFINNISHED BRIDGE Experts estimate that petrol consumption in Nigeria should not exceed 35 million litres per day. But corruption puts it much higher, sometimes for as high as 70 million litres per day. This outrageous figure is not strange because Nigeria is widely acknowledged as a crime scene – a country hurting in the hands of its supposed care-givers. Private importers who work at the behest of collaborators inside the government have been known to ‘import’ shiploads of petroleum products without the ships being sited anywhere near the country’s territorial waters, not to talk of discharging any products. But such ‘importers’ file claims with excellent shipping documents, and collect hundreds of millions of dollars from the public treasury. NNPCL does the same. Then a cartel hijacks the little litres of petrol that were in truth brought in, ferrying such to neighbouring countries in 33000-litre trucks and in broad daylight where they make a kill. Nigeria has clearly delineated borders with its neighbours. We have all manner of tax-payer paid government officials at those borders. But the trade booms. Currently, an investigative reporter has been reporting on the daily massive smuggling of 50kg bags of rice into the country with the active involvement of immigration top shots. He has been doing so with video evidence. Last week the journalist reported that the leader of the smugglers was accorded a red carpet reception at the Abuja headquarters of the Nigeria Immigration Service. His reports have not been disputed and nothing has happened to the economic saboteurs. Back to the issue at hand. Alhaji Tinubu takes responsibility for his misadventures on petrol and Naira. Almost two years since his hare-brained twin policies, market forces are yet to fully determine the prices of petroleum products and the price of the Naira. Whilst the NNPCL moderates the prices of petroleum products especially petrol by importing and fixing different pump head prices for different parts of the country, the Central Bank defends the Naira through regular sales of the United States dollars to the bureaux de change, and through the aggressive mopping up of  Naira in circulation. The policies are obviously not working. The price of petrol at over N1000/litre is not sustainable. It has ruined the economy and will inflict more damage with the regime’s insistence that it will stay the course. Nigerian families are worse off. Bloomberg, an American news organization reported last week that about two -third of Nigerian households can barely manage to feed once a day. And the quality of the meal is suspect. Their report was drawn from the latest statistics from the Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). PLEASE READ: NIGERIA, THREE OTHER COUNTRIES GO LIVE ON ECOWAS E-Certificate The irony right now is that there are claims that the country is turning the corner, and that good days are on the horizon. Tinubu says so. The central bank governor says the same. Finance minister who is also the coordinating minister for the economy sees the same signs of economic recovery. Even the national security adviser, yes the NSA, who should have his hands full with widespread insecurity pervading the land, parrots the same message of visible economic turn around. But they are the only people who see economic recovery on the horizon. And they all share one thing in common – they all binge on the public treasury. I wager that none of them had been to a gas station to buy either petrol for the government SUVs (armour- plated and bomb-resistant brands) that they are driven in or to purchase diesel to fire government – owned electricity generators in their residences which also are built and tastefully furnished with taxpayers money. It is not strange, therefore, that they are separated from reality and the daily grind of the majority of Nigerians. The case of the NSA is particularly painful and pathetic. Daily, he joins the security agencies including the secret police otherwise called the Directorate of State Services (DSS), the regular Police, the Civil Defence Corps, the Armed Forces, among others, to run political commentaries on the state of the country. In place of combating insecurity, what the NSA does is to warn non-state agents terrorizing Nigeria to know that Tinubu is not known to lose any battle. Is he for real? The man cannot be, and should not be, a national security adviser even in a banana republic. What our rulers are doing is beyond talking up the economy, they are deliberately deceiving Nigerians. Any sign of economic recovery must

World Bank puts Nigeria’s GDP at $477.4bn in 2022

A new report by the World Bank Group showed that Nigeria’s recorded an estimated Gross Domestic Product of $477.4 billion in 2022. The report showed that the country ranks 18th position on the continental ranking of countries by GDP per capita for 2022. The 2022 ranking showed that Nigeria notched one point up from the 19th position it ranked in the previous year when the GDP stood at $440.8 billion. According to the World Bank’s latest data, Nigeria recorded a 5.7 per cent increase in its GDP per capita, which rose to $2,184 in 2022, from the $2,066 reported in the preceding year. In terms of nominal GDP, the country’s economic performance demonstrated remarkable resilience, registering an 8.3% nominal year-over-year expansion in 2022, in spite of the whirlwinds across the global and regional economy. Broadly analyzed, the World Bank’s report showed that the African economy slowed to 3.8% in 2022, dipping the continent’s nominal GDP to an estimated $2.75 trillion. In addition, the report Indicated that the Sub-Saharan region recorded a slow growth rate of 3.6%, in contrast to 4.1% recorded in 2021, with a projected growth rate of 3.1% in 2023, due to what the bank attributed to sluggish global economic growth, high inflationary pressure, and tough financial conditions exacerbated by the high debt profiles of the countries in the continent. A further analysis of the report in terms of GDP per capita, which is a more accurate measure of productivity in an economy, the continent’s economy recorded an average of $2,705 in 2022, indicating a 6.6% increase compared to $2,538 recorded in the previous year. The report further covered the top 10 countries in Africa based on GDP per capita in 2022 with Seychelles topping the ranking table with an impressive GDP per capita standing at $15,875, followed by Mauritius, which recorded a 12.7% upswing in its GDP per capita, which climbed to $10,216; and Gabon which came third with 2.1% increase in its GDP per capita to $8,820 in 2022. Others are in order of ranking, Botswana which came fourth, boasting an average GDP per capita of $7,738; Equatorial Guinea with a GDP per capita of $7,053 in 2022, representing a 6% decline compared to $7,507 in 2021; the 6th position in ranking was South Africa at $6,776 GDP per capita; Libya at number 7th with $6,716 GDP per capita; Namibia ranked 8th with $4,911 GDP per capita; Egypt followed with $4,295; and Algeria came 10th with $4,274 GDP per capita in 2022.