The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Economy, Wale Edun, knows what to do to turn Nigerian economy around.
Why is he negotiating upward review of minimum wage with organised labour officials when he knows what will be its macroeconomic corollary on the groceries? Is he saying it won’t usher inflation into the system, whereas, pocket economists are already cautioning PBAT administration on this trend? Ordinary stakeholders, too, are not keeping quiet on the would-be derivative effect on their living standards. Not mincing words, prices in every sphere, shall indubitably hit the rooftop.
Coming this far, let’s imbibe the pontification that the minister should create parity between earned income and purchasing power of such income. The pundits call it, purchasing-power-parity (ppp). This, I believe (not think), is the way to go. Having paradoxically deployed the epistemology of financial engineering, with the prism of stochastic anatomy in the works, the safe-landing for government and inflation, is considerably, N80’000/month (unconsolidated), which translates to over 165 per cent increase on the present status of N30’000/month.
Because Nigerian economy is a dollar-coated economy, it is instructive, for the upteenth time, that, he should also find ways to strengthen the local currency. Policy formulation by the apex bank, aside from market forces, is capable of doing so. There is no sense in carrying so much crispy notes all around town without value. It is damn too inflationary! Pay workers N500’000/month, it won’t make any impact, inasmuch as commodities and services would eat-up the mentioned sum, while contemporary economy (the street economy, so to speak) would have the tendency to whirlwind, and run in a round cycle. There and then, hardship on the citizenry remains unabated, which adds up to dystopian achievement, albeit to the slur of sitting government. Again and again, upward review of salary and pension would pang eco-social carnation.
To further address the paranoid in recurrent expenditure somehow, is for the government to do away with fiefdom policy that makes its subjects subservient to the political gladiators. I cannot fathom why someone born of a woman, with appetite not dissimilar to a minimum wage earner, should gross circa N30million/month, while the minimum wage worker goes home with a paltry N30k, same month. The difference is downright preposterous. It therefore becomes expedient to drastically prune down salary/allowances of political office holders in the 3-tiers of government. My humble self, and by extension, the entire people of Nigeria, are earnestly asking for such adjustment.
With the hindsight of interpolation, the authority should jettison collection of 60 per cent levy on imported commodities; it is a levy that bounces back on final consumers. In matter of fact, it occasions the prohibitive total cost of imported goods in the market, with modicum to staple food, called rice.
The Lagos-Calabar Coastal road project is very laudable. Steadfastness shall see the project through, but concernedly, it shouldn’t be financed with the last drop of our blood; government should not appear to strangulate eventual users to death. That PBAT’s administration should review the policy of IGR via multiple taxation, is the kernel of this admonishment.
If the foregoing suggestions flew well, Tinubu doing ‘dobale’ for democracy,, begging democracy to tolerate him, would change to democracy doing ‘dobale’ for him, which presupposes democracy begging him to stay, at least, beyond 2027, if not 2031, in Aso Villa.
*Folorunsho Bello
Distinguished Professor of Financial Management
Pebble Hills University, Delaware, USA; and Certified Public Accountant (Chartered.)
