The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) on Wednesday advised the Federal Government not to take any foreign loan to avoid crisis in the country.
The unions spoke following President Goodluck Jonathan’s letter to the Senate President on Tuesday requesting approval to borrow about $7.9 billion (about N1.3trillion) for pipeline projects.
The President said it represented cumulative facilities offered by the World Bank, African Development Bank, Islamic Development Bank, Exim Bank of China and Indian lines of credit.
The President had said that the request was coming under the medium term (2012-2014) external borrowing plan for the projects which were at various stages of finalisation.
But in a telephone interview in Lagos, the Acting General Secretary of NLC, Mr Owei Lakemfa, said that there was no need for the foreign loans.
“We do not need the loans to be able to executive important projects,” he said.
Lakemfa said that the Senate Committee on Appropriation had discovered that the 2012 budget was inflated by over N1 trillion– which showed a high level of corruption.
He said that except corruption was curbed, it would be difficult for the country to move forward.
Lakemfa flayed a situation in which some top government officials in the petroleum industry could not give coherent figures when appearing before the House of Representatives panel looking into the issue of petroleum subsidy.
He advised the government to ensure that those allegedly looting the government treasury were brought to justice.
Lakemfa also urged the Federal Government to publish how it planned to create the 370, 000 jobs it promised and those that would benefit from it, to ensure transparency.
Also speaking, the General Secretary of TUC, Chief John Kolawole, said that the country did not need to borrow money before it could create jobs or executive major projects.
“We must think and scrutinise well before taking such a loan. Do we need to take a loan to execute the project the President talked about? We must be careful about how we borrow,” Kolawole advised.
The TUC scribe said that there must be transparency before such a loan could be taken, to avoid problems in the economy.
On employment, Kolawole said that the planned job creation was a welcome idea but that the government must ensure that it was gainful employment and not an opportunity to create jobs for the “boys”.
He said that it should adhere to the rule of job decency and impact positively on the lives of the people and the nation.
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