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From article
Buhari To Give Cabal-Industry Dollars But Deny Same To The Largest Labor Employers–SMEs
Today small industry and small entrepreneurs have no access to foreign exchange.
Perhaps President Muhammadu Buhari does not get it, or does not understand the severity of it, but from the President’s media chat and his responses on the government’s choice for distribution of scarce dollars, Nigeria is at risk of not creating but losing millions of jobs.
President Muhammadu Buhari in the chat said that the government was going to focus on making dollars available for big manufacturing industry.He said: “On foreign exchange, how much are we earning? We try in our priority to look after industries that are employing people and producing goods and services.”
Big industry are owned of course by the Cabal; many such Cabal looted billions of Nigeria’s national earnings to establish their companies; but punishing them for this is not even the issue. The issue is that big industry is the small employer of labor. This is a known fundamental fact of economics especially in the developing world.
SME (Small and Medium Enterprises) is the largest employer of labor. The companies that you and I run; we are the people that employ 75% of labour in Nigeria. It is the same in India, China, Malaysia, Brazil and so on. SMEs across the world employ anywhere between 70 and 80% of labor. The so-called big industries only employ a tiny fraction of labor.
Developed societies have actually moved from “manufacturing goods” to service economies. Lot’s of such services are provided by small and medium enterprises who are being starved of dollars.
The strict and partial moves being employed by the current administration in these trying times are very risky and may implode the nation before they possibly alleviate the crisis and before they may yield the needed returns. Thousands of small and medium enterprises are folding across the nation due to the shortage and denial of foreign currency. Nigeria has not yet developed its manufacturing sector and a significant amount of SMEs depend on various completed and partially manufactured materials from abroad. These businesses are unable to get access to their raw materials, tools or traded products. The implication is catastrophic.
While we are not suggesting that the government simply returns the access to foreign currency to what it was; we demand that it be the same for Cabal big industry as it is for Small and Medium enterprise. Whatever ration of access to foreign currency is given to large companies, so also the same ration of access to foreign currency should be given to small entrepreneurs. We want change. We are tired of being slaves to the recurrently preferentially treated Cabal who get tax breaks, access to credit, preferential choice land and now, preferential access to foreign currency.
So we ask: why should the Dangotes and Danjumas always be favored above the rest of us? Syria and Libya constructed infrastructure but what happened? Many will say that the social inequality and government institutionalized disadvantagement allowed those nations to crack; and look at them today. In seconds it all came tumbling down. What is the use of Buhari building-up Nigeria only to deepen the lines of inequality, frustration and anger that are the roots of the terror and that will pave the path for the terror of tomorrow? If Elite individuals as these are so good, I suggest we add Jonathan to the list and surely two more Ds, Dasuki and Diezani to jointly head the Rehabilitation committee?
God Bless Nigeria this 2016. May we reap the fruits of our votes.
Dr. Peregrino Brimah; Email: [email protected] Twitter: @EveryNigerian; Also on http://Naija.Live online radio.
