TUC leaders warns President to be careful

chika ebuzor

January 6, 2016 4:33 AM

The union leaders insinuated that the IMF boss was here to try to convince Buhari to take loans, an insinuation Lagarde denies.

The President and Secretary General of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), Bala Kaigama and Musa Lawal, have warned President Buhari to be careful in his dealings with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

This is coming on the heels of a closed door meeting between Buhari and the IMF boss, Christine Lagarde at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

In the meeting, Lagarde offered to assist Nigeria trace stolen funds, restructure the country’s tax system and block revenue leakages.

The TUC leaders think otherwise.

They said “This warning is informed by our bitter past experience with the financial body. Our country is already in dire straight and cannot cope with the IMF’s characteristic shylock conditionalities attached to its credit facilities, and must not accept same if that is what the visit is about.

“For the umpteenth time, we wonder aloud: Can’t we solve our challenges as a nation without foreign intervention? Must the Brettonwood institutions be the ones to always determine and tell us when our economy is doing well and when to devalue the naira?”

They also asked “Why must they suggest to us how our economy can be fixed, whereas their recipe has consistently tended to end up impoverishing more Nigerians than ever before?

“Why has it become so difficult to produce good and quality rice and other local products for domestic and export needs? Since when did it become rocket science for our once functional refineries to produce at more than 30 percent of installed capacity and make petroleum products available?”

She said “Let me make it clear that I am not here (in Nigeria) nor is my team in this country to negotiate a loan with conditionality. We are not into programme negotiations and frankly at this point in time, given the determination and resilience displayed by the President and his team, I don’t see why an IMF programme will be needed.”

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an organization of 188 countries, working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world.

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chika ebuzor