News
RSHA Assures Pensioners Of Better Days Ahead
The Rivers State House of Assembly, yesterday, held a public hearing to reform the pension law of the state, as it assured pensioners that henceforth they will start enjoying their retirement benefits as at when due.
This follows the presentation of an executive bill tagged Rivers State Pension Reform Bill 2019(HA23) to the House, penultimate week.
Speaker of the Assembly, Rt Hon. Ikuinyi-Owaji Ibani, in his remarks, urged the pensioners to have hope in the government, insisting that the Rivers State House of Assembly was duty bound to synergize with the executive to better the lives of the people.
He noted that one of the defects that the bill seeks to address was to make it possible for pensioners to access their pensions even when the government has not contributed theirs.
The Chairman of the Committee on SSG, Head of Service and Pension, Hon. Benibo Anabraba described the bill as a good one that will better the lives of pensioners in the state, and expressed the commitment of the House to making laws for the good of Rivers people and those resident in the state.
Also speaking, Rivers State Commissioner for Justice and Attorney General, Barrister Zachaeus Adango said, with the new law in place, government would no longer bear total responsibility of funding pensions.
“Under the former scheme, government was solely responsible for funding pension, but under this scheme, responsibility and is shared between government and the employees, so you must be prepared to commit your monthly emolument towards saving for your pension,” he said.
The attorney general posited that retirees would only have to earn according to the level of their contribution and the return on their investment.
On her part, Chairperson of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC),Rivers State Council, Comrade Beatrice Itubo, described the bill as a good one, but lamented the failure of government to contribute its own part of the pension, which according to her, constitutes a major challenge in the scheme.
“But what we are seeing is that our leaders have not gotten the political will to implement their own part of the bargain,” Itubo stated.
She also solicited for the implementation of the accrued pension rights for civil servants to make it possible for civil servants who were not in the contributory pension arrangement to, at least, benefit something upon retirement.
Also, a member of the Association of Civil Servants in the state, Comrade Sam Chikwere, who disclosed that over N70billion was being owed pensioners in the state, urged the government to scrap the entire contributory pension scheme.
He said, “because there is no sincerity on the part of government, government lacks the capacity to manage this pension, we are saying that the scheme should be scrapped forthwith”.
A representative of the National Pension Commission, Murtala Mohammed Modibo said the commission, which regulates pension matters in the country, has established an institutional framework to ensure a sound and sustainable pension industry in the country, noting that the commission has engaged states in guiding them in the implementation of pensions operations.
While adding that since government can no longer fund pensions alone, he said that certain amounts should be deducted at source from the salaries of civil servants for pension.
He also lamented the lack of commitment on the part of government towards implementation of the pension law.
News
Stakeholders Raise Concern As Nigeria’s Inflation Rate Rises To 31.70%
The challenge of spiraling inflation and how to stem the tide has been central to stakeholders engagements in recent times.
According to analysts at CardinalStone Finance, an investment house, the rising inflation pressure indicates that Nigeria remains within the top 10 countries with the highest inflation reading in Africa.
The analysts said that a material jump in prices of food stuff like rice, was a consequence of the increasing depletion of food reserves and incessant insecurity issues in food-producing parts of the country.
The Tide’s source reports that Nigeria’s inflation rate rose to 31.70 per cent in February from 29.90 per cent in January.
This is according to recent data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
The NBS said that the February headline inflation rate showed an increase of 1.80 per cent compared to the January headline inflation rate.
It said that on a year-on-year basis, the headline inflation rate was 9.79 per cent points higher than the rate recorded in February 2023, which was 21.91 per cent.
“This shows that the headline inflation rate (year-on-year basis) increased in the month of February 2024 when compared to the same month in the preceding year ( February 2023),” the NBS said.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) also warned that 8.0 per cent of Nigerians are at a high risk of food insecurity if the current inflationary trajectory persisted.
The Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr Yemi Cardoso, said that the leading factors driving inflationary pressure in Nigeria included rising cost of energy.
Cardoso said that high fiscal deficits and lingering security challenges in major food -producing areas were also responsible for the high inflation rate.
He said that the apex bank had initiated a raft of inflation-targeting frameworks in its monetary policy measures.
He said that this informed the decision by the CBN to further raise the Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) by 400 basis points to 22.75 per cent from 18.75 per cent.
According to Cardoso, the move followed the success recorded in slowing down inflation in the past using the same mechanism.
Stakeholders, however, believe that the removal of petrol subsidy, closely followed by the decision to float the Naira were largely responsible for the spiraling inflation.
According to Okechukwu Unegbu, a past president of the Chattered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN), President Bola Tinubu already took some sensitive policy decisions even before appointing the CBN governor and the finance minister.
“Floating the Naira was a major error that has exacerbated inflationary trend and caused the people so much pain,” he said.
Unegbu urged the government to fix the economy by looking beyond the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in selling its crude oil.
He also advised that the government should ignore economic prescriptions by the World Bank and IMF and produce indigenous solutions to the nation’s economic challenges.
“Nigeria should do something about pricing its oil in Naira. We should leave OPEC, price our oil independently.
“If inflation can be addressed; if we produce more food, things will improve. It will also address the issue of “dollarisation of the economy,’’ he said.
A renowned economist, Prof. Ken Ife, said that the CBN adopted inflation targeting as a basis for further tightening monetary policy rates, an indication of how serious government took the country’s rising inflation.
Ife, however, said that the support from the fiscal authorities was crucial to achieving monetary policy results.
“The CBN says it is going for inflation targeting, but there should be more support from the fiscal authorities because a lot of the issues with the economy are not really monetary.
“We have N500 billion going for social intervention annually, the money does not go into the productive sector,” Ife said.
He said that the import dependence nature of Nigeria’s economy was a major fuel to the inflation and weak Naira in the foreign exchange market.
According to him, not much has changed in terms of the structure of the economy over the years.
He said that Nigeria was part of an international division of labour, which confines it to the provision of raw materials and consumer of finished products.
“Any attempt to add value to our exports is usually met with stiff resistance.
“When a country is import dependent, it becomes so vulnerable to any external, global headwind, and it affects the economy
“The mortgage crisis in America and the Russian-Ukrainian war affected us because we are import-dependent. What we have is imported inflation,” he said.
Dr Chijioke Ekechukwu, an economist, said that while many countries were having their inflation rate reduced month-on-month, Nigeria’s inflation rate continued to rise because of volatile exchange rate regime.
Ekechukwu said that standard of living had dropped to the lowest ebb while the country’s external reserve was being eroded by inflation.
“Cost of living has become increasingly unbearable, crime has taken over the entire country, and investors are afraid to venture into the country.
“Companies are shutting down and leaving the country and jobs are lost every day.
“The government has to be very decisive as a matter of urgency to remedy the ailing economy by ensuring that the exchange rate improves to less than N800 to the dollar.
“The exchange rate must be stable to enable planning and to restore confidence in the economy,” he said.
Ekechukwu said that every possible avenue should be explored to diversify the country’s export base.
He advised the Federal Government to ensure that the country’s crude oil sales met the OPEC quota of 1.8 million barrels per day.
“The Federal Government should also ensure that revenue from crude oil sales came in on a daily basis through the CBN, “ he said..
He said that such a step would provide the country with enough liquidity to check inflation and other economic challenges.
News
Police Arrest Two Lagos Traffic Robbery Suspects Disguising As Beggars
Police have arrested two robbery suspects who pose as alms beggars in Lagos traffic gridlocks.
The duo approached a motorist in a gridlock at Agungi area in Lekki on Friday, soliciting for alms, but forcefully took his telephone handset and jewellery and took to their heels.
Police spokesman in Lagos State, SP Benjamin Hundeyin, told The Tide’s source, yesterday, that the motorist quickly alerted a nearby police patrol team that arrested the robbers.
“The stolen items were recovered from them.
“The two suspects will be arraigned accordingly’’ Hundeyin said.
He told the source that police also arrested a woman, who attempted to transact a N90,000 business with a Point of Sale (PoS) machine operator, using fake N1,000 notes.
Hundeyin said the vigilant PoS operator raised an alarm leading to the arrest of the woman.
He said the suspect had been detained for investigation.
News
Middle Belt Warns Govs Against Grazing Land
A group known as the Middle Belt Patriots has urged state governors not to succumb to pressure from the Federal Government to cede lands to herders for grazing.
The group said yielding to such demands would worsen the security situation in the Middle Belt region and other parts of the country.
President Bola Tinubu had, while speaking at the flag-off of the agricultural mechanisation revolution for food security in Minna, Niger State capital, last Monday, called on governors to give parts of the land in their states to Fulani herders for RUGA or ranching purposes.
In a statement issued on Saturday and signed by its Director of Media and Strategic Communications, Steven Kefas, the Middle Belt Patriots wondered how the Federal Government constantly panders to the interests of the pastoralists at the detriment and displacement of the indigenous populations whose lands and lives are being overrun by the armed ethnic militias affiliated with the herders.
The statement read in part, “We of the Middle Belt Patriots vehemently condemn and reject the recent directive from the Federal Government asking state governors to make land available for grazing by Fulani herdsmen.
“This provocative and ill-advised order shows a shocking disregard for the already tenuous security situation in the Middle Belt region that has been under sustained violent attack by armed Fulani ethnic militias.
“We sternly warn the political leaders, monarchs, and youth/community leaders of the Middle Belt region – Benue, Plateau, Nasarawa, Niger, Kwara, Kogi, and sections of Taraba, Adamawa, Bauchi, Southern Kaduna, and Gombe – to outright disregard and defy this reckless federal directive.
“Capitulating to these demands and ceding more land for grazers will only fan the flames of the ethnic clashes, further the genocidal massacres, escalate the violent displacement of indigenes from their ancestral lands, and jeopardise the fragile peace in a region that has already suffered immensely.”
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