ICSAN rallies professionals to boost Nigeria’s external reserve

There is an urgent need for the government and the private sector to proffer practical solutions to boost Nigeria’s external reserve, President and Chairman of Governing of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrator of Nigeria (ICSAN), Taiwo Owokalade has said.

The ICSAN boss, who was speaking on the 2022 annual public lecture of the Institute slated to take place in Abuja tomorrow, Wednesday, which has, ‘External reserve dynamics and governance challenges’ as its theme, explained that Nigerians must come together to proffer practical solutions to the dwindling foreign reserve of the country.

He stressed that settling imported goods and services bills is becoming difficult due to low foreign reserve.

Owokalade decried the inability of Nigeria to diversify its economy despite being an oil-producing country for more than six decades, while arguing that other sectors of the economy are not contributing enough to the growth of external reserves.

He explained: “If the other sectors do not have access to what they need, they will not be able to generate enough returns that ought to come into the economy. So, Nigeria keeps focussing on crude oil which is the biggest earner of foreign exchange for the country. Nigeria should have multiple sources through which it can earn foreign exchange but this is not happening. We must find solutions to this unpalatable reality.”
The ICSAN chief also blamed the inability of the current government to fix the refineries that would have saved massive foreign exchange for the country if Nigeria was able to refine for the local market as well as export.

His words: “We were told some seven years ago that the refineries will be fixed within a short period of time. Seven years later, not one has been put back on stream. There is no clear indication that any of the four refineries would be fixed in the next one year. Now, everyone is waiting for the Dangote refinery to take Nigeria out of the present quagmire that it found itself.”

Owokalade said the inability of Nigeria to determine its PMS daily consumption is also a worry, adding, “it is bad that in the year 2022, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva cannot say categorically the number of litres of Motor Premium Spirit (PMS) the country consumes daily. So, Nigeria is not sure what it is subsidising and how many neighbouring countries we are subsidising their PMS consumption. These countries do not add any value to the Nigerian economy. These are the issues that are affecting the external reserve of the country. It is the external reserve that sustains the business level between the outside world and Nigeria. So, it is the means we use to pay for things that we are importing and that are not isolated within the Nigerian economy to create value, it means that we are subsidising the economy of the neighbouring countries.”

He maintained that while the government has done all within its powers to grow the economy in the last seven years, its best has not been good enough, saying, “we are not castigating the government but we are critiquing the process.”

He further argued that the Nigerian system has grown to an extent where it could make professionals engage in unethical conduct.

“But in all these, we must find a way of ensuring we remain steadfast to our professional callings. Before now, we knew the process that produces political parties’ delegates. But see what has become of delegates in this election circle? Delegates can now become millionaires and even billionaires just by attending presidential primaries of political parties. That is Nigeria for us there. There are no known procedures and processes anymore.

There were Accountants, Engineers, and Administrators among those delegates. All these are contributing to the collapse of the Nigerian economy. That is why we are bold enough to insist that the country must begin to talk about developmental issues that are influencing unethical practices among the professionals and take steps to curb them,” he stated.