Former Director-General, Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, (LCCI) and Chief Executive Officer, the Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise (CPPE), Dr. Muda Yusuf, in this interview with SEUN IBIYEMI speaks on the state of policies and challenges in Nigeria’s economy: He observed that inflation and exchange rate depreciation, have worsened poverty in the Country. In his view, Nigeria is now in a vicious circle of heavy borrowing, describeable as a debt trap. This is even as he believes the ripple effects of the proposed stoppage of sales of Forex to commercial banks would have adverse impacts on the economy.Excerpts:
Looking at the ease of doing business so far in the last eight years of the President Muhammadu Buhari – led government, how would you rate doing business in the country eight years ago and now?
Well, the ease of doing business situation is not particularly impressive. We can look at it from a number of perspectives. First, there is what we call investment climate issues or investment climate variables. This will cover things like the situations in our ports, such as ease of cargo clearing, it will cover things like the state of our infrastructure, the energy situation, transport situation, situations with our logistics, among others. Of course, we have issues of insecurity.
These are very important investment climate issues. We have issues of processes, government processes and the regulatory environment. How conducive are issues of regulations as well?
So, on the score of the investment climate side, the performance has not been satisfactory because of all these challenges. The cost of doing business has remained very high. Of course, I am aware that we have the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council, called PEBEC, which is headed by the Vice President and they have been doing their best to ensure a much better investment environment. They have been able to get the Corporate Affairs Commission to go online to ensure that their processes are digitalised, in terms of online business registration and so on. They have done quite a lot in terms of business registration and we have seen quite a number of executive orders and so on — all towards ensuring that we have a better environment. My view is that they are possibly overwhelmed by the scale of the problems. So, we haven’t seen much improvement when we take all the variables together. From the investment climate point of view, we haven’t achieved much and we haven’t made much progress.
Inflation
Then there is the macro-economic perspective to the investment environment. The first thing one would like to talk about as far as the macro-economic environment is concerned is inflation. Inflationary pressure on this economy is extremely high. Official figures, the latest we have for January is 15.6per cent. Firstly, let me say that, of course, there is a slight deceleration because the previous one was 16.63per cent, but 15.6per cent is still quite high and food inflation in particular was over 17per cent because the 15.6per cent was the headline inflation — food inflation is over 17per cent. So, the performance as far as inflation is concerned is not investment friendly. It has been driving up cost of production, it has been affecting profit margins, it has been affecting capacity utilization, affecting sales and affecting the turnover of businesses.
On the welfare side, is talking about the welfare of the people. If there is any issue that has accelerated the pace of poverty in Nigeria today, it is inflation because inflation has massively eroded the purchasing power of the citizens. It has made a lot of people poorer. Some people who used to be in the middle class, are already gradually slipping into the lower class of the economy because of the erosion on their purchasing power by inflation. For many of these citizens, their income have not gone up. Some of them have even lost their jobs, some of them are pensioners and yet inflation is galloping. So, that means the little income that they have has significantly lost value. And when I say that the income have lost value, although the official figure is 15.6per cent, in some cases, some people’s income has lost value to the tune of close to 50% depending on what they are buying: Because for many citizens, the basket of the food that they consume or they buy, in that basket, prices have gone up by over 50% in the last one year. We even have instances where prices have doubled in the last one to two year(s). That shows you the kind of damage inflation has done, either to business or to the welfare of the people. That is the inflation component of the macro-economic environment.
Exchange Rate
There is the exchange rate component. The exchange rate is very critical to trade, especially international trade and even domestic trade, to the extent that when what is being traded is also imported or it has imported input, exchange rate will affect it. The exchange rate situation has been extremely bad. First, from the point of view of the depreciation in the exchange rate. Second, from the point of view of the liquidity problems in the foreign exchange market. The currency has lost value significantly. Two years ago, perhaps, we were talking about exchange ate of maybe 400 or possibly over. Today, exchange rate is N570/$1 sometimes going to N575/$1. So, that has taken the toll on businesses; that has also contributed significantly to inflation, contributed significantly to cost of production, also affecting capacity utilization, and affecting the profit margins. Then, there is the Liquidity problem in the foreign exchange market because the foreign exchange problem is too dimensional. There is the depreciation and there is the liquidity. Liquidity is when you are able to get the foreign exchange as and when you need it. Many players in this economy have complained that when they need the foreign exchange they can’t get it and if they get it, they can’t get it to the tune of what they require to run their business, especially from the official window because as far as the central bank is concerned, it recognises only the official window of the foreign exchange. In the official window, there is no liquidity.
Even for Multinationals when they demand for forex, they will be lucky to get 20per cent or 30per cent of the forex that they require. So, that shows that there is a liquidity problem here because you cannot meet demands. That has compelled a lot of businesses to move into the parrallel market to go and source their foreign exchange and that is creating a whole lots of problems for businesses.
Debt
Then there is the debt situation, which for me is also a macroeconomic issue. The rate at which we are borrowing and the rate at which government is spending a whole lot of money to service debt is alarming. As at November, 2021 according to the Minister of Finance, 76 per cent of our revenue was used to service debts. As at that November, the debt service was N4.2 trillion. The actual revenue was about N5.6 trillion. If you work out the percentage, it will give you about 76 per cent and as the debts increases, as the deficit increases, the percentage of revenue that will be used to service the debts will also be increasing. The debts situation is creating a whole lots of issue for the economy because it is making it difficult for the government to also fund infrastructure. It is also creating a vicious circle of borrowing, because if you are spending so much to service debts, then you have no option than to continue to borrow more for you to sustain your operations. We are now almost in a vicious circle of heavy borrowing, which may even be described as a debt trap. From the macro-economic point of view, not much is happening that is favourable to business, though lately, we are seeing some sense of recovery in terms of the GDP numbers. For the last figure of the GDP, we had for 2021, 3.40 annual full year GDP. Year on year, the fourth quarter (Q4) GDP was 3.98 which is a bit positive and the last few quarters have been reporting positive GDP growth which is also a pointer to the fact that we are gradually recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic. Basically, that is what it is all about. The figures are looking so good as a very strong base figure because the GDP figure of 2021 is being compared to 2020 and because 2020 was a year of recession, it is very easy to see the significant improvement and that is why we see that it is a strong base effect.
The second reason we have fairly good performance in GDP is the fact that a lot of economic activities are now rebounding, they are now coming to life unlike what we had in 2020 when quite a number were under lockdown, there were restrictions, supply change disruptions globally as some sector like Aviation sector, the hospitality sector, entertainment sector, many of this sector are practically under lock but until 2021 it wasn’t exactly like that so that has improved and also contributed in improvement.
Oil Prices
Then of course we had oil price. Average oil price in 2020 was $42 per barrel. Average oil price in 2021 was $72 per barrel and historically there is a positive correlation between oil price and our GDP. If the oil price is going up, normally GDP growth also improves because we are an oil producing country. Of course, we have issues with subsidy payment but oil price growth or improvement normally have a very good impact on GDP growth. So, that also contributed to the performance we saw in GDP. The last factor that contributed to the GDP performance was the fact that the government also intervened in some stimulus. We had this economy sustainability plan which was announced in 2020 and it also took some serious effect in 2021 to aid the recovery of the economy. The value of that plan was N2.3 trillion. I am not sure whether everything was expended, but I know there are some injection of liquidity through that plan. That also contributed to the GDP recovery that we saw. It is one thing to have a good GDP growth, it is another thing for the GDP to reflect in the welfare of the people. It is a different conversation entirely because between now and the last one year the poverty situation has even worsened especially because of inflation and exchange rate depreciation.
Well, a few businesses have recovered on account of the fact that there is general recovery in the economy, but many small businesses are still facing challenges in the economy. So, we can only celebrate in very limited way the GDP growth that we recorded. Those are my comments on the macroeconomic situation which is a very important component of the investment environment.
Energy Cost
There is issue of high energy cost. One of the problems we have as an oil producing country is that, normally we should be celebrating when oil price is going up but the paradox in Nigeria is that when oil price is going up, we seem to even suffer more because the cost of diesel is going up, its over N400. The cost of aviation fuel is going up, its over 400 and we are seeing what airfares are saying now. One hour flag is about 150,000. Same thing applies to kerosene which is used by poor people around the villages, the same thing applies to gas which is used by industries. So, we suffer a whole lot anywhere price is going up. This is also unfortunate because we should be benefiting a lot more and to make matters worse, we pay a lot more for subsidy when oil price is going up.
In terms of transportation, the cost is still very high. Of course we have some investments in railways, what is the level of coverage?
The ones we have are essentially Lagos, Ibadan, Kaduna, Abuja then Warri, Abeokuta, Itape. Those are the only three. For a country as vast as this, the impact is very limited. So transportation cost, a lots of the goods you see in the country with fixed movement are still done almost 80% by road and all these trucks that are moving on the roads are consuming diesel, they are not using petrol. When diesel price is going up, it affects the cost of the goods that they move around including food items — that is also part of the reason why we have high food inflation.
CBN earlier this year said they are banning sales of forex to banks, how will you react to this, what is going to be the economic impact?
If the CBN bans or stop the sale of forex to banks, it is going to create a very serious shock on the economy. We are going to see a very serious hike in the exchange rate, the exchange rate depreciation will even be much worse than what it is today. Remember, when the CBN stopped the trade of forex to BDCs, the CBN said they were involved in sharp practices and almost immediately we experienced a jump in exchange rate. At that time we had about N480 – N500, today we are talking about maybe N570/$1. In practical terms, practically that do not solve any problem. What we saw that time will be a child’s play if the CBN goes ahead to stop the sales of foreign exchange to the banks. Currently, the CBN practically were housing the foreign exchange from the NNPC that is from the sales of crude oil, foreign exchange from some capital importation, foreign exchange from other major sources which is directly to CBN. The CBN is like a custodian. So, if somebody who is like the custodian to the national foreign exchange now says that it is not intervening anymore to the foreign exchange, of course, it is going to create a major crisis. We are going to see a crisis that is almost unprecedented unless the CBN has other channels through which it should be intervening in the market because you can’t be a major custodian of the foreign exchange and you say that you are not injecting the foreign exchange into the system. It cannot work. The consequences will be very difficult to contemplate, so I don’t think it should happen. When the CBN governor was talking about it, he talked about it more or less as he was speaking off the curve during that press conference, but none the less, its an indication of what they are talking about because it came from the CBN Governor. They have to think through it properly otherwise they will create very serious dislocations in the economy.
Is the CBN RT 200FX achievable, what impact will it create in the economy?
The program the RT 200 is a good aspiration. It’s a bit ambitious in my view because we are talking about generating 200billion US dollars in three to five years. All export currently now is less than 10 billion so how do you want to move from 10 billion to 200 in three to five years? But it is good to be aspirational; it is good to be ambitious, we shouldn’t quarrel about that. But what we need to quarrel about is how realistic and the strategy to deliver it, because right now there are issues of capacity of the economy to generate that foreign exchange. When we are talking about non-oil export, we are talking about essentially the real sector of the economy. We are talking about production, about processing, about logistics. Bringing these things from wherever to Lagos, we are talking about the situation with the port. All these issues are not within the view of the central bank. The only thing the CBN can put on the table is funding but not everything is about money. We need to address the structural issues in order to scale the production capacity to be able to export because we are looking at the whole value chain not just the primary production. We need to do something that will allow for addressing the issues of processing, issues of production and all of that — that is one. The productivity in the economy is difficult to support that.
The second point is that the current foreign exchange policy itself is not consistent with this ambition. The foreign exchange policy currently is essentially a fixed exchange rate policy. All official transactions are to be done using the official exchange rate which is N416 to the dollar, the parallel market rate is N570, so how do we encourage even exporters to bring in foreign exchange into this economy at N416 when they know that in the other market window, exchange rate is N570?
That is the issue that is penalising the exporters because even as we speak, many exporters are reluctant to repatriate their funds. Many of them are reluctant to comply with the NXP (Non oil export proceed) and the CBN itself is struggling to get the exporters to comply because of the exchange rate policy. The exchange rate is not market driven, therefore the incentive for people to repatriate is not there. So, for these polices to work, they should have a market driven exchange rate such that exporters will be able to get the full value for their foreign exchange. If we continue to insist that exporters will get equivalent of N460 to the dollar for their export process, not many of them will come. The current foreign exchange policy is in negation, in conflict with the objectives of the RT 200. If you don’t do something about the foreign exchange policy then forget about the RT 200.
What area do you think the gov’t has made policies that actually helped the economy in the right direction?
The Government has done some policies right in the financial sector or in the monetary space. We can say that the government has done quite a lot, especially the central bank intervention funds, making money available to the manufacturers, the agric sector and all of that. Even though the amount of money that have been spent especially on agriculture is not commemorate to the output or result that we are getting at least, it has some positive impacts. To that extent, we can say that in development finance area, the government have done something fairly well, but not fully well. The manufacturers can easily get funds from the through the CBN. They give single digit interest rate, they give long term facilities which many people cannot get from a commercial bank, so we can give them partial credit not full credit.
We have seen a whole lot too around Fintech and financial inclusions. We can see the rate at which a lot of products are coming out now from the financial sectors; a lot of apps are being developed, lots of online payment services; we can see the proliferation of POS outlets, creating jobs. Some of the banks have agencies which we call agency banking. Some of them have over a million agents dispensing services with this POS, that’s a lot of job. Some of them have over one million. That I think is good because it has brought banking closer to the people; it has also advanced the course of what we call financial inclusion and it has also made transactions easier for many people. Many people don’t go to ATM again. Although they charge you N100 for N5000 or something but a lot of people go there and they are in every nook and cranny of the country. Apart from making services closer to the people, it has also created a lot of jobs These days, you will not see queues again at the ATM, all those things have disappeared. Its only a matter of time some of this ATM will have to pack up because all these guys with small POS are competing seriously. With them you can see the person you are dealing with but with ATM, you can’t see the person. That again is one good thing. The area of mobile money, a lot of young chaps have developed a lot of apps payment systems. That sector is also growing and creating quite a lot of jobs. In the area of financial inclusion, mobile money, Fintech, I think we can say that something positive has happened and of course we have also seen the bit that the government is doing in terms of road construction. You can see the Fashola (Minister of Works and Housing) all over the place trying to fix road, even though he doesn’t have as much capital, at least you can see some result in terms of Lagos-Ibadan, though it is taking ages, at least we are seeing something. On the railways there is a lot of efforts in that area.
Generally, the ICT area in addition to Fintech, there are several others. In that sector you can see that the economy is even growing fast. Those areas, I think we are doing fairly well but in terms of our foreign exchange policy we are not doing well at all, because the foreign exchange policy is discouraging inflows of private capital into the economy. Whether you are talking about foreign direct investors, fund portfolio investors and even foreign exchange that comes from the diaspora. Until recently, it wasn’t such a good thing so the foreign exchange policy is creating a lot of problems for both domestic investors and foreign investors because the CBN have been very rigid in ensuring that we have the unification of exchange rate.
We now have a very huge gap between the official rate and the parallel market rate which is creating a whole lot of distortions in the economy, creating a problem of rant tripping, moving money from the official window to the parallel market window which is illegal. Imagine someone is able to get one million dollars in the official window and crosses it to the parallel window, that’s over a 100 billion and almost 120 or 130 million naira just because you have the permission. That is still source of distortion and even if you have the money to buy raw materials, its not profitable for you to just spend the money. I am not saying it is a legal thing to do but it has created an incentive for people to go through that route which is not good.
More importantly, it is affecting the inflow of capital, affecting the capacity of the economy to attract foreign exchange. We need foreign exchange to calm down the foreign exchange market. We need supply, we cannot rely only on oil but all these other independent sources. If the exchange rate is not right, those sources will not come, they are blocking them that’s why the crisis is as bad as it is. When our exchange rate is supposed to be coming down its not, that is why we need to review our policy.
E-naira was created by CBN to counter cryptocurrency, What would be your reaction to it?
The E-naira for me wasn’t a priority to start with. We have more important things for the CBN to address than the E-naira. You can see that all over the world even in the advanced economies, countries are very cautious of all these digital money because of issues of regulations, capacity to regulate it, the issue of money laundering and all of that. Even advanced economies are still struggling with it. Now, we have introduced it, and as we speak, I don’t see much actions that it has gotten other than the ceremony around it that we are the first in Africa to use the E-money. There’s a lot of publicity about it but what value have it added and where are we with it, how many transactions have been done, how much confidence do people have to put their money? The E-naira thing, there’s very little to show in terms of what we have achieved. Apart from the psychology of saying that we are the first in Africa to have it, in terms of the value to the system, I don’t think there’s much and in any case we are doing very well with payment system already, doing well with electronic transfers, doing well with our POS, doing well with banking services, internet banking, we have mobile apps. We are doing so well. At this stage, I am not sure we really even need the E-naira because we have to struggle with the regulations. Shortly after the CBN announced it, a fake website of E-naira came up. Does the CBN even have the capacity to manage it, to regulate it, to minimize the exposure in any case? The CBN even worsened the issue of confidence when it said it is not going to take liability for anybody that loses money on account of that platform. When you make such a statement, how will that help confidence in the use of that platform?
Let’s talk about port challenges?
The port situation is one of our biggest problem in this economy. If we take out the issue of maybe power or energy, maybe the issue of foreign exchange, I think the next issue is the port. Unfortunately unlike power, when you don’t have it you can buy generator, but you cannot build your own port. You have to still go through the port, whether you are importing or exporting. It is one of the biggest drawback to our economy. For such policies, I thought there should have been some engagement with the stakeholders because one of the ways to ensure you have a good policy is to engage with stakeholders, so that what you are seeing and not seeing, the stakeholders can point it out to you: Not necessarily from a selfish point of view but how to make the process work for everybody. So, there was no consultation, this was just thrown on them and what I heard from them is that it was just imposing arbitrary value on imported vehicles, irrespective of the state of the vehicle which is not fair because already, vehicles are very costly: Because of the exchange rate, the cost at which these vehicles are coming in are extremely high and the import duty already is high —we are talking of about 35%, that is high enough. Why do you go and make the decision that will now increase the value because if you increase the value, by the time you now charge the duty on it, it will be astronomical. How many Nigerians do you think will afford the vehicles? Many Nigerians cannot afford the vehicles, what they buy is second hand. Now the second hand, you want to put it beyond the rate of middle class. I think the government or whoever is originating it should go back to the drawing board, engage with the stakeholders and look at what is mutually acceptable. I am not sure this has any connection with the E-invoicing that the CBN was talking about because the E-invoicing is supposed to be with the bank. Whatever it is, there should be more engagement and government should not make cost too prohibitive and in any case, things are hard enough. Sometimes, it is as if people are not connected to the reality. Rather than see how we can make things a bit easier, we seem to be compounding the problems and that is why I also want to caution the government on this issue of revenue generation. They keep pushing all the agencies to go and generate more revenue. The risk is that you are going to be hurting investments and even kill some investments; maybe that’s part of what is playing out in government because the target for customs revenue has been increased. Meanwhile, we have a tariff policy, we have import duty clearly stated. We are not supposed to go outside of it. How will the National Assembly just sit down and be giving mandate to customs to go and increase revenue? You can’t increase revenue beyond what is in the tariff book. It is not the National Assembly that will change the tariff book. If the customs is also struggling to meet target, sometimes they now begin to do all manner of things and the responsibility of customs is not just revenue generation, it is also trade facilitation. Nobody is talking about trade facilitation. The National Assembly does not recognise the fact that trade facilitation is an objective for customs. The only things they want to see from customs is revenue and that is what is happening. Before an investment even takes off, you are already encountering problem at the port, whether it is machinery, whether it is raw materials. Even if you allow the business to take off first, if the business is making profit, government will get tax, but if from the very beginning it makes it difficult for the business to function, how will the business yield profit or give you tax? Its like making some investments dead on arrival because of the challenges they face at the port. That’s part of the issue why the service sector now is accounting for almost 55per cent of our GDP because with service sector you don’t have to be running about one container, about diesel and all these things. Just sit on your computer, make some phone calls, softwares, make your money and you go. But that is not also good for job creations, not also good for the economy, because we consume a lot of things that are physical; we should be able to produce them here. But when we create an environment for people who are doing production making that almost impossible, then we end up with all manner of cheap production and factories are closing — go to Ogba, go to Ikeja. Many of the factories have now been turned into churches, some of them event centres, some of them have been turned into warehouses, some into supermarkets. From Ogba to Ikeja, go and check some of these supermarkets and event centres, they used to be factories.
On railway, the Federal Government spent over $1.6bn on Lagos-Ibadan standard gauge, looking at the maintenance of that project, how sustainable is it?
For me, it is a very long term project. The railway line can last for 30 to 40 years and it is not just an economic investment, it is also a social investment. We should not be looking at it as strictly on the basis of naira and kobo, we should be looking at the impact it will have on the economy, the impact it will have on the capacity to move some of these heavy trucks away from the road. Take for example, if we are able to move our petroleum crude oil, all these tankers if we are able to transport them by rail, If all these dangote cements rather than put them on the road, they can be moved by rail, we know the impact it will have on the cost of road maintenance. Generally, right now almost 90per cent of our cargo or goods are moved by road. If you travel by road you see how many trailers are on the road. There’s hardly any country in the world where you have that kind of thing. All those things that those trailers are moving should be routed by rail. So, if we get to that point, it will save us first very expensive cost of transportation which will reduce the cost of goods and services in the economy; it will save us a great deal the cost of road maintenance because the fewer the number of all these trucks on the road, the longer will the road last. So all of these things are benefits that really quantify. To come back to your point, it is sustainable but it has to be managed well. They have built the track, if the management can be contracted to the private sector to manage tickets, manage maintenance, that can easily be contracted, but if you leave everything to the government and their operatives, before long we will end up with all manner of stories, so that it doesn’t end up like the refineries. We should see how we can work with the private sector to manage the ones that have been completed. The most important government investment is the rail track, all the other things, the coaches and all these, the private sector can take it over. We can run with that and save the government the trouble of having to maintain all these things. If you have the right model, it will work and will be sustainable.
what reforms do you think we need in the country to make us more of a producing nation than a consuming nation?
In terms of reforms, the first reform I think we need to do is in the oil and gas sector. Fortunately, we are almost there in the enactment and signing into law of the petroleum industry act only for us to now begin to roll it back again because of political reasons. Look at how much we are spending to import petroleum. It is the saddest thing for our economy. There is no member of OPEC that imports petroleum product like that as an oil producing country. That is why oil price is high now. We cannot smile because we are importing petroleum products at a very expensive rate because of the negligence of those who have been in the government for the past 20 or 40 years. What is difficult in refining petroleum products? Is it not keen science? The first major reform that can bring relief to us is what is called the petroleum industry act. Its a major step so many of us have been hoping it materialise. Legislatively, it has materialised but in practice it has been put on hold. If we are able to do that, the first thing is the billions of dollars we use to import petroleum will be saved. That will help our foreign reserves, it will also help our currency. All the bleeding, corruption, subsidy and all these problems will come to an end. We will be able to create a lot more jobs. Imagine that we are refining all those oil, how many refineries would have been built? How many of our young boys who are engineers will have been working there? There would have been quality jobs. Imagine how much of investments that would have come into the place. Talking of investments or even the major oil companies, millions of dollars would have come into this country for setting up refineries. We would have been feeding practically the entire Africa, with petroleum products by the use of legitimate export. We should have been the refining hub for most of Africa, but we have messed up and look at the price we are paying for it. We are talking about N3trillion for subsidy. Do you know what N3trillion can do in all the economy if they put it on roads, railways, hospitals, education and all of that? Reforming the oil and gas sector is number one, reforming the foreign exchange market is number two, because the foreign exchange market today is against investment, it is discouraging foreign investment, discouraging foreign portfolio investment, discouraging the inflow of foreign exchange into the economy. That is why all the things we are doing is demand for the foreign exchange market, fighting this and that, removing something from the foreign exchange market, foreign exchange exposure list and all that. All these things are demand management issues, they need to fill the supply side. The current foreign exchange policy is not addressing supply.
The process to addressing supply is what was done for the diaspora remittances when they say they bring in their money, they can have access to their dollar. They are giving them little. Unless we have a market driven exchange rate, we will continue to have problems with our foreign exchange market and exchange rate. That is the second major reform that I think we need to do.
Then, generally we have to look at how we can expand the scope of private investment in the economy through public-private partnership across most sectors. Then you are talking of property, of infrastructure, talking of power. All of them have scope for the private sector to play a good role, because the private sector is said to have capital, they have expertise but we need to harness all these things, we need to reform our ports. Our port is perhaps the worst port in Africa. Even Togo, Ghana, Cotonu, their cargo is coming into Nigeria. Look at how we have messed up as if it is not a governed territory? The maritime sector alone, if we get it right, can generate huge foreign exchange for us, a whole lot of jobs if we get it right. There are so many things to reform.