L
LequteMan
Guest
Owner of Ifeanyi Ubah Football Club, Mr. Ifeanyi Ubah, has offered a piece of advice to top officials of Nigerian financial institutions on how to lift the country out of its current economic hardship.
The oil mogul had earlier in the year stated that he could make the naira equal to 200 per dollar, at a time when the currency exchanged at 400 to the greenback on the parallel market.
If the federal government can crash the price of dollar, Nigeria would be better, he said. Here's his solution to the country's FX woes:
"The biggest Forex consumer in Nigeria today is the Petroleum Product Downstream sector, of which I am the leader. Petroleum products take over 75 per cent of the Forex that Nigeria generates. Therefore, if you want to attack the difference between the Naira and the Dollar, which no expert has been able to find a solution, what you need to do is to find an alternative, so that the demand for Forex needed for the importation of petroleum products will crash.
"If you do that, you have taken away 75 percent of that cancer that is taking away our dollars. And how do you do this? There's what is called top-up refineries. Some top-up refineries can cost us as little as $200million.
"If I am the Chief Economist of this country and I want to bring back the value of Naira as well as bring life back to the economy of Nigeria, what I need to do is to take up a $2 billion bond from our reserve. If I am able to take a bond of $2billion from our reserve, which is not money I am spending, but a bond, our money remains. I can take this $2billion and then share it among 10 companies. In those 10 companies, I will create Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) of 10 oil marketers to one company.
"If you bring 10 oil marketers to run one company and Government funds them for 10 years, it means that all of us will go there and we will bring the best of us to manage the company.
"Therefore, what we are going to do is create 10 companies along the whole water lines of Nigeria, and in six months time, we can now refine our crude oil here in Nigeria, instead of taking it abroad to refine. By so doing, we don't need to buy dollars anymore to import petroleum products. It means that we can now be refining our crude oil, using it to meet our own petroleum needs.
"Petroleum product is one of the biggest factor today in this country. Without fuel, nobody can drive to Uke today. If students go on strike, Government may show neglect. If doctors go on strike, Government may neglect. But once there is a strike over fuel, the Government will always run to see how it will stop the strike."
The oil mogul had earlier in the year stated that he could make the naira equal to 200 per dollar, at a time when the currency exchanged at 400 to the greenback on the parallel market.
If the federal government can crash the price of dollar, Nigeria would be better, he said. Here's his solution to the country's FX woes:
"The biggest Forex consumer in Nigeria today is the Petroleum Product Downstream sector, of which I am the leader. Petroleum products take over 75 per cent of the Forex that Nigeria generates. Therefore, if you want to attack the difference between the Naira and the Dollar, which no expert has been able to find a solution, what you need to do is to find an alternative, so that the demand for Forex needed for the importation of petroleum products will crash.
"If you do that, you have taken away 75 percent of that cancer that is taking away our dollars. And how do you do this? There's what is called top-up refineries. Some top-up refineries can cost us as little as $200million.
"If I am the Chief Economist of this country and I want to bring back the value of Naira as well as bring life back to the economy of Nigeria, what I need to do is to take up a $2 billion bond from our reserve. If I am able to take a bond of $2billion from our reserve, which is not money I am spending, but a bond, our money remains. I can take this $2billion and then share it among 10 companies. In those 10 companies, I will create Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) of 10 oil marketers to one company.
"If you bring 10 oil marketers to run one company and Government funds them for 10 years, it means that all of us will go there and we will bring the best of us to manage the company.
"Therefore, what we are going to do is create 10 companies along the whole water lines of Nigeria, and in six months time, we can now refine our crude oil here in Nigeria, instead of taking it abroad to refine. By so doing, we don't need to buy dollars anymore to import petroleum products. It means that we can now be refining our crude oil, using it to meet our own petroleum needs.
"Petroleum product is one of the biggest factor today in this country. Without fuel, nobody can drive to Uke today. If students go on strike, Government may show neglect. If doctors go on strike, Government may neglect. But once there is a strike over fuel, the Government will always run to see how it will stop the strike."
