The story from Athens on the biting economic crunch ravaging Greeks is not palatable at all. What is happening there gets complicated every day and if care is not taken, may get to a point of no lasting solution.
That is if the authorities do not stretch their thinking capacity to the optimal level.
Last week, Eurozone finance ministers ruled out any further talks on a fresh bailout for Greece until the country holds its referendum today, Sunday, July 5.
Greece owes billions of euros to European Union (EU) nations and their domestic banks like Germany, France, Italy, Spain, The Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, and Finland; and separately owes the United States and United Kingdom billions through their domestic banks.
In today’s referendum, Greeks are asked to accept or reject proposals made by creditors, for which Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras urges a nay vote.
Even though Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis accused creditor nations of blackmail, he pledged a deal would be reached soon after today’s vote and that current limits on bank withdrawals would ease.
Varoufakis said in a television interview: “This is a very dark moment for Europe. They have closed our banks for the sole purpose of blackmailing what? Getting a ‘yes’ vote on a non-sustainable solution that would be bad for Europe.
“On Monday (July 6), the creditors, the lenders will have taken the message by the Greek people …. So as soon as they get this message, be sure that in a very short time there will be a response.”
Regardless of the outcome of today’s referendum on whether to accept or reject conditions for further financial aid, overall development in the country is in limbo and not something anyone would wish happens to a country that wants to make progress.
What is causing problem for Greece is that her creditors are not ready to go by the conditions Tsipras is giving for accepting more credit.
Addressing the nation on Wednesday, July 1, Tsipras thanked Greeks for their unusual equanimity in the face of bank closures and hardship, reassured their salaries and pensions are intact, and denied he had a secret plan to take Greece out of the euro, an allegation he said was invented by “liars”.
The BBC reported that Tsipras put new proposals to Eurozone partners, accepting most of what was on the table before talks with creditors collapsed last week, but with conditions.
His latest offer is tied to agreement on a request for a third bailout from the Eurozone’s bailout fund lasting two years and amounting to €29.1 billion.
That Greeks cannot access more than €60 a day due to cash withdrawal limits imposed by banks operating under highly excruciating circumstances is a reality the people find difficult to comprehend.
Banks did not open last week after the European Central Banks (ECB) froze their liquidity lifeline. Withdrawal from cash machines was capped at €60 a day with long queues forming outside banks.
However, up to 1,000 bank branches re-opened on Wednesday, July 1 to allow pensioners – many of whom do not use bank cards – a one-off weekly withdrawal of up to €120.
Many pensioners had waited outside banks from before dawn, only to be told to come back on Thursday, July 2 or Friday, July 3. While the pensioners waited, some were told their pay had not yet been deposited.
“It’s very bad,” said Popi Stavrakaki, a 68-year old. “I’m afraid it will be worse soon. I have no idea why this is happening.”
Feelers from Abuja reveal the monumental financial recklessness of the Goodluck Jonathan administration. Now there is a huge debt hanging on the necks of the federal and state governments, and that means we are not too far from the Greece situation – unless those steering the ship of Nigeria think of how to create wealth for the country.
Enough of this filtering away of our scarce resources.
There is a blame game among some Governors like Adams Oshiomhole of Edo and former federal government officials like Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala on who should be held accountable for the missing money in the treasury, indebtedness of federal and state governments, and the manner those who managed our common patrimony conducted themselves.
These are pointers to the level of carelessness and lack of seriousness of our leaders that will invite the Greece situation if not properly handled.
It is a shame that ours is a country where public servants spend resources, including borrowed funds, instead of creating more wealth for the nation.
It seems the Jonathan administration is the focal point of this threatening financial recklessness, but one recalls how much Nigeria was indebted to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other creditor countries in Europe and America when former President Olusegun Obasanjo took over the reins of power.
Successive military regimes and their criminal-minded leaders who saw Nigeria as one big Eldorado and farmland competed to out-mine one another in the resource base of the country. They left the country with zero infrastructure and bleeding from the dearth of transparency and accountability.
Nigerians, including public servants, still remember what we went through to exit from the debts accumulated by military administrations, courtesy of Obasanjo’s efforts, that made Nigeria a pariah state and candidate for heavy sanctions from the creditor international community.
Like what Greece is facing today, administrations that came after Obasanjo’s descended on the money they met in the coffers, which he laboured to save in and outside the country. They spent with such reckless abandon that even what the country was generating from crude oil sales and other revenue strings could not satiate their love for public money.
The culture of eating our tomorrow today which politicians and public servants have instituted is not sustainable. The ‘share it all’ mentality that was the sing song of most governors in the last dispensation, including Oshiomhole, should not be encouraged in this new era.
Much as I share Oshiomhole’s view that the federal government under Jonathan should not have borrowed money to pay salaries – for which Okonjo-Iweala was offering subtle rationalisation last week – I expected him to agree with the former Finance Minister about her efforts to save for the rainy day, over which most former governors even went to court.
A country that borrows to invest in profitable venture thinks about the future, and that makes a lot of sense. But to borrow for recurring expenditure like payment of salary and allowances, estacode, security votes, and to engage in other frivolities means the country is eating her tomorrow today.
That was what public servants in the Jonathan era did with joy and fanfare.
Nigerians are highly patient and tolerant. No wonder they can afford to stomach the yarn now coming from shameless and crafty public servants who, under their watch, billions of naira of public funds were frittered away by criminals, in the name of election.
How else can Nigeria be reduced to the Greece situation?
