The Nigeria Employers Consultative Association (NECA) has urged the Federal Government to give priority of allocation of available forex to manufacturing and other productive sectors of the economy as forex scarcity persists.
Director-General, NECA, Mr Wale Oyerinde, while speaking on the state of the economy in Lagos, called for a holistic and multi-pronged approach towards resolving the challenges faced by the nation.
He urged the Federal Government, as a matter of urgency, to  encourage the development of modular refineries as a precursor to total subsidy removal.
Oyerinde said, “In the medium term, the Federal Government should, as a matter of urgency, fix the four national refineries and encourage the development of modular ones as a precursor to total removal of fuel subsidy.
“With over N5tn budgeted for subsidy payment in 2022, an amount larger than the budget for education and agriculture, this is unrealistic and unsustainable.
“Economic interventions aimed at improving living standards (to stimulate consumption) and enterprise sustainability (to promote job creation) should be implemented.
“While forex scarcity persists, allocation of the available forex to manufacturing and other productive sectors of the economy should be given priority.”
According to him, this was better time for the government to deepen its engagement with the Organised Private Sector, adding that the government’s efforts to salvage the economy was commendable.
He said “the nation is currently faced with multiple challenges, with dire combination of spiraling inflation, rising energy cost (aviation fuel, diesel, etc.), scarcity of forex, dwindling value of the naira, an almost comatose aviation sector, stuttering education system, rising debt, depleting foreign reserve and rising fuel subsidy expenses among others, which threatens to lay bare the country’s economy.
“There is no better time for government to reappraise current economic policies and deepen its engagement with the Organized Private Sector. While Government’s effort to salvage the economy is commendable, there is, however, need for a More holistic approach to resuscitate the stuttering economy”, he said.

The Nigerian Oil Spill Monitor, a sub of the Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA), has put the losses in gas flaring in Nigerian at N891 billion.
The oil spill agency in a release on Sunday said Nigeria lost N891 billion to gas flaring in 18 months.
It revealed that the country lost a total of N707 billion in 2021 and N184 billion in the first half of 2022, totaling N891 billion.
According to the NOSDRA report, oil and gas companies operating in the country flared a total of 126 billion standard cubic feet (SCF) of gas in the first half of 2022, leading to a loss of $441.2million (about N183.54 bn) in the six-month period.
On the other hand, in 2021, about 23,862.271 barrels of oil (3,770,238.864 litres/119 tanker trucks) were spilled.
Brent International was sold for an average of $71 per barrel in 2021, bringing total revenue loss in that year to $1.7million
The estimation put the equivalent of the volume of gas flared in the first half of 2022 to carbon dioxide, CO2 emission of 6.7 million tonnes in the oil producing areas, which was 4.56 per cent higher than the 120.5 billion SCF of gas flared in the second half of 2021, and capable of generating 12,600 gigawatts hours of electricity.
Also, the quantity of gas flared in the first six months of 2021 was capable of generating 14,000 gigawatt-hour of electricity, and an equivalent of 7.4 million tonnes of CO2 emission.
Giving a breakdown of the gas flared in the country in the first six months of 2022, the agency disclosed that while companies operating in the offshore oilfields flared 62.2 billion SCF of gas, companies operating onshore flared 63.9 billion SCF of gas, valued at $223.6 million.
In 2021, there were around 382 publicly available oil spill records. Out of the 382 occurrences, a total of 33 of these oil spill sites were not visited by a joint investigation team, and 122 of these had no estimated quantity of oil spilled provided by the companies involved.
Two major oil spills were recorded in 2021, with over 250 barrels spilled into inland waters, or over 2,500 barrels spilled on land, swamp, shoreline and open sea, the report said.

By: Corlins Walter