The federal government on Thursday, directed banks and authorised forex dealers to sell the Pilgrims Travelling Allowance, PTA, to intending pilgrims at a concessionary exchange rate of N197 to $1.

In a circular on Thursday, marked, TED/FEMFPC/GEN/01/005, the CBN said: “Each pilgrim is entitled to purchase a minimum of $750.00 and maximum of US$1,000.00 as PTA. The Federal Government has approved that intending pilgrims are to be sold the PTA at a concessionary exchange rate of N197.00 to the US dollar. “No commission shall be charged by the banks for the sale of the PTA to the intending pilgrims. The Central Bank of Nigeria shall sale the PTA to the designated banks in Lagos and Abuja and the accounts of the respective banks shall be debited as soon as the funds are disbursed….”

ViewPointNigeria Analysis

At the time of undertaking this analysis, the Naira exchange rate to the dollar at the open market was 1$ = N387 (To put this into perspective – the dollar to Naira exchange rate in June 2015 was $1 = N180). So essentially, the naira has lost approx. 130% of its value in the open market over the last few months.

A 130% decrease in value is…………. (to put it kindly) an absolute catastrophe and tragedy for the Nigerian economy. Even the most daft unsavvy leaders would see something fundamentally wrong with an economy, which appears to be imploding within itself. And all indicators point to the fact that a myriad of foreign investors and businesses have pulled out of the country because of the sheer uncertainties. Not to mention the number of small Nigerian businesses that have folded up. For instance

• United Airlines of the USA has cancelled its daily Houston to London flights because of the worsening exchange rate.
• Iberia (the spanish carrier) cancelled some of its routes to Nigeria because of instability in the Nigerian economy
• Banks including UBA, Daimond bank and other have laid off over 5000 staff since the beginning of the year because of difficult business headwinds.
• Dangote group declared losses of over $8 billion.
• The price of a bag of rice has increased over 200% in Lagos
• A bag of corn now retails at approx. 150% of its price in mid-2015

With all these difficulties and the fact that Nigerian’s are experiencing immense challenges – it is troubling to see that FG has decided to concentrate its efforts at approving FOREX for people to go on pilgrimage as opposed to the majority of Nigerians who need succour the most. Is pilgrimage the the most pressing need of all N170 million Nigerians? Why does this take precedence over all other groups who desperately need government succour?

Remember that many parents who have children studying in UK and US universities pleaded with Buhari to  allow them buy forex at the government exchange rate (N197), but he vehemently refused. So why is it that, that of Hajj is considered different?

Nigeria is a secular state – and it should be ran as such. What is good for the goose, should be good for the gander. No single ethnic group, crony, religion etc should receive unique treatment over others.

This sort of attitude gives a very bad impression of governance, especially when one considers that last month an entire national day of holiday was approved for all 170 million Nigerians because of the non-sighting of the moon. That extra-day of holiday, would have costs the Nigerian economy billions of Naira in non-productive time. But it appears our minister of interior (Danbazzau) doesn’t think that lost revenue matters, in as long as certain interests are satisfied.

If one considers these two points, along with the lopsided appointments, which have predominantly favoured Northern Nigeria, then quite an ugly picture of the current state of affairs in the country begins to emerge.

Governance must be about delivering on promises and bringing development to the people as opposed to sectionally living up to the expectations of a select few.

Dr. Chinan Mclean

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2016 Hajj: Buhari authorizes selling of dollars at N197 for pilgrims