Sequel to Nigeria’s past bitter experience with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) has advised the Federal Government to beware of its dealings with IMF.
The TUC President General, Comrade Bobboi Bala Kagaima said in a statement on Tuesday: “Our country is already in dire straits and cannot cope with the IMF’s characteristic shylock conditionalities attached to its credit facilities, and must not accept same if that is what the visit is about.”
Dr Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of IMF is in Nigeria for a four-day working visit.
The statement reads in part, “For the umpteenth time, we wonder aloud: Can’t we solve our challenges as a nation without foreign intervention? Must the Brettonwoods institutions be the ones to always determine and tell us when our economy is doing well and when to devalue the naira?
“Instances abound of countries that were hitherto nowhere in terms of development in the 1970s/80s but have successfully transformed into giants and premium net exporters of goods and services.
“Instead of exploring its other natural resources, our country has stayed glued to its blasé identity as a monocultural oil-based economy.
“Conversely, India, China, Malaysia, South Africa, Indonesia, etc, are all doing well today because they looked inward to all their potential. Meanwhile, the biggest buyer of our oil, the United States, has become a large exporter of the same product, clogging the market and causing our economy to gasp for air.
“We are hard-pressed to believe that the IMF chief’s visit is a mere courtesy call. True to the traditions of her organisation, she would definitely look to dabble and meddle in our fiscal and monetary challenges and seek to sell to our government another of their portage of self-serving, ill-adaptable theories and policies that are sure to further impact negatively on the country’s revenue and increase the pressure on the naira in the foreign exchange market.
“While we are not adverse to genuine mutually beneficial partnership with the Fund or any other body, we shall fight any agenda inimical to the economic and other interests of the Nigerian masses.”
The TUC further stressed that Lagarde’s meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari should yield improvements in the business environment, promote opportunities for growth in the private sector, accelerate job creation and strengthen social cohesion.
It advised that the policies that do not work for the country should not be embraced, while it advocated re-negotiation of the current loans in the light of the burden that debt-servicing constitutes to the budget, which is about 23 percent of the total budget.
It also warns that no devaluation of the naira should be countenanced unless the percentage of devaluation is equivalent to the percentage increase in the national minimum wage.
-Leadership