Wage level of ordinary civil servants in Nigeria

In the early 1970s, Nigeria's currency was strong, and the exchange rate between the naira and the US dollar was about 65,438+0 to 2. Nepal's economic development is relatively stable, with an average annual GDP growth rate of about 3. 1%, and its economy is dominated by agriculture. Agricultural output value accounts for 65% of GDP, and agricultural exports account for 70% of total exports. Grain is basically self-sufficient, and the export volume of cotton, peanuts, cocoa and palm oil ranks among the top in the world. Generally speaking, the national fiscal revenue at that time was far worse than now, but the overall living standard of the people was higher than now. Although the industrial (agricultural) system at that time was fragile, it still had a considerable foundation, and large state-owned enterprises and private enterprises could provide a large number of employment opportunities for the people.

From the middle and late 1970s, with the massive exploitation of oil (up to about 2.68 million barrels of crude oil per day in 2004, including 6.5438+0.5 million barrels of concentrated oil), a large amount of petrodollars suddenly enriched Nigeria's treasury (by 2004, oil exports accounted for 95% of the country's foreign exchange income and 85% of its total exports), and the government gradually ignored the development of non-oil economy. During the boom of oil economy, the government adopted a series of unrealistic policies and gradually formed a deformed economic structure that is now heavily dependent on oil.

The first is the lack of effective guidance for the influx of petrodollars, which leads to the out-of-control of domestic prices. A simple truth is that China can produce very few things, but suddenly there is a lot of money on the market. These currencies are not properly guided to the investment market, but are all used for consumption. More money and less goods will naturally lead to soaring prices, which in turn will stimulate the import of a large number of goods and seriously hit the national industry.

Compared with the income and actual living standard of ordinary people, the prices here are really outrageous. For example, the market price of an egg is about 1. 1 RMB, the market price of a bag of 50 kilograms of rice is about 350 yuan RMB, and the monthly salary of an ordinary civil servant is about 1000 RMB.

Statistics show that the annual income of poor families in Nigeria is only 3500-5000 naira. Such a low income and so many poor people should bring a lot of cheap labor to society. But the reality is that it is not cheap to maintain the minimum monthly income of an ordinary labor force above 5,000 naira (the minimum monthly wage stipulated by Nigerian law is 5,500 naira). There is a very contradictory fact that many industries cannot develop because of the shortage of labor. At the same time, a large number of idle laborers stay at home and are unwilling to work hard for low wages. This can't be blamed on the laziness of blacks, because prices in Nigeria are high. If the monthly income is less than 5,000 naira, the money is not enough to pay for the nutrition consumption needed by this laborer, let alone to support the family (the market price of a bag of 50 kilograms of wheat flour is about 3,200 naira, and a bag of 50 kilograms of rice needs 6,000 naira). Because of this, farmers from poor families prefer to stay at home and eat only one meal a day rather than work more (Nigeria's superior geographical position makes people who don't work starve to death, so they can pick some leaves from trees to cook soup and take wild fruits everywhere to satisfy their hunger). Hard-working wage earners have no way out here. On the one hand, they earn too little money after deducting their own consumption to get rich through hard work. On the other hand, the employment opportunities provided by the extremely backward national industries are simply a drop in the bucket (most of the employment opportunities in Nigeria need to be provided by government departments, and only a few enterprises are successful, and the unemployment rate reached 14% in198).

When the cost of raw materials and labor is greatly increased, domestic industry and agriculture are seriously affected, because the cost is greatly increased, followed by a sharp decline in the competitiveness of products in the international market and the loss of market share. After losing the market, national enterprises will only face bankruptcy. In this process, the government made the second mistake, that is, to yield to the pressure of the western world and keep the currency freely convertible! This mistake made the government lose the ability to cope with the crisis and protect its own enterprises. Because of the free exchange and circulation of currency, the exchange rate of Nyala against the US dollar has plummeted from 1 to 2 in recent years to 140 to 1 now (the goal put forward by the Nigerian federal government is to control the annual inflation rate below 10%, and the inflation rate in 196 reached a record of 29. Because the authorities can't improve the competitiveness of domestic products by maintaining a certain exchange rate, various industries in China, which are still in the initial stage, have been devastated by more developed countries (China's goods therefore occupy more than 90% of the market share) and closed down one after another. Therefore, even low-tech products such as toilet paper need to be imported from abroad.

At present, the Nigerian government has also realized this crisis and started to restrict the import of goods on a large scale, but this policy has not played any role so far. Because the government has not made great efforts to support domestic enterprises while restricting imports, or she does not have this ability. Domestic enterprises in Nigeria can't develop, domestic goods are in short supply and prices have risen sharply. The direct consequence is only to limit the normal consumption of civilians with poor domestic purchasing power, which is inconsistent with the government's wishes.

The corruption of the Nigerian government is also an important reason for the grim economic situation. Of course, this problem should not be entirely attributed to the current government, but decided by her national system. In the case that the economic base and superstructure have not yet matched, Nigeria blindly copied British western-style democracy, resulting in the current situation that the federal government is decentralized and unable to control the overall situation. For example, President Obasanjo was re-elected for two terms with the strong support of the military. However, his term of office and power in his hands are restricted by many political forces, forcing him to safeguard the interests of these people when exercising his power, otherwise he will lose the opportunity of re-election and even be in danger of impeachment. In Nigeria, all politicians and officials, big and small, are not corrupt, and all the rich people in this country are among them. Imagine Obasanjo has the courage to move out of the anti-corruption issue and operate on these people?

At the same time, the lack of binding force of national laws on corruption is also an important reason why these people are bold and do whatever they want. To what extent can Nigerian officials take bribes? Let's look at a piece of information: an evaluation company in Germany released a report in 2004, which is an analysis of the ability of countries to attract foreign investment. In this report, Nigeria ranks in a very backward position, because it is clearly pointed out in the report that in order to invest in Nigeria, in addition to the high expenses mentioned above, an extra budget of more than 36% should be added to the investment amount for establishing contacts and bribing relevant government officials. Officials in Nigeria follow such an almost transparent convention. Any payment with a rebate of at least 20% must be given to the approver, otherwise the money may not be used! Originally, the operating cost of this country was high, raw materials and labor were expensive, and with this 36% extra investment, who would like to take the risk here?

The current President Obasanjo himself has registered several companies, specializing in bidding for government investment projects. With Obasanjo's help, these companies can easily get some huge government projects, and then subcontract them to China (or German, Israeli, etc. ) the company carries out construction. In this process, at least a rebate of 20% of the project cost will be obtained. Subsequently, Obasanjo himself often asked for benefits from these companies that got the project, ranging from tens of thousands of dollars to millions at a time. In order to continue to get the contract in the future, these companies are all obedient.

The deposits of Nigerian politicians in overseas banks have been published on the Internet. There are dozens of rich people with assets exceeding one billion dollars. Babangida, president of 1985- 1993, is now running for the next president. His assets are tens of billions of dollars, which can solve the problem of food and clothing for the Nigerian people for three years. Where the money comes from is self-evident. The question now is, even if these people are dug up, what can we do? There is no law that these people will be dismissed or investigated for criminal responsibility, and it is a big deal to hand over the bribe money. In other words, according to the relevant regulations, if you lose your job because of accepting bribes, you can abdicate, and the stolen money does not need to be returned. It is no exaggeration to say that Nigeria is a paradise for corrupt officials.

I heard a joke here that when Nigeria's engineering ministers alternate, the new minister learns from the old minister and how to be a good engineering minister. As soon as I entered the door, I saw that the old minister's house was very luxurious, with crowds of servants and piles of vehicles. I humbly asked how I could earn so much money. The old minister casually opened the window and asked, Did you see the highway outside? The new minister said yes, and the old minister said that 20% of the project cost of this expressway is in my pocket. The new minister nodded yes and got the message. A few years later, the old minister visited the new minister and saw that his home was more luxurious, just like a palace. He asked the new minister how he made money. The new minister also casually opened the window and asked, have you seen the highway outside? The old minister rubbed his eyes and looked at it carefully for a long time and said, there is no highway? The new minister proudly said, yes, because 0/00% of the project cost of the expressway/kloc-is in my pocket!

At present, several China companies operate well in Nigeria, mainly including telecom companies, geological exploration and drilling companies and road engineering contracting companies. The success of these companies lies in skillfully taking advantage of the corruption of Nigerian officials and actively participating in the labor market contracting of government projects. In 2004, a China engineering company we contacted won a 9.5 billion naira infrastructure project in a certain state through bidding, and then about 3 billion naira of project funds were put into the governor's overseas account. After all, China people are very smart. If they don't do this, they won't get the order. If they do this, the company will still make a profit. Of course, this is also the main reason why officials at all levels firmly hold on to power. After such layers of corruption, nearly half of the country's fiscal revenue has flowed into the pockets of officials at all levels. The life of senior officials here is extremely luxurious. I once went to the home of a vice minister of engineering, and his family could afford nearly 20 luxury cars and a lot of servants, which is evident.

No one wants to invest money in Nigeria after officials at all levels enrich themselves. They knew that if they invested the money in Nigeria, it would be like a mud cow in the sea, so they rushed to invest the money in foreign markets or deposit it in external account, which triggered a large amount of capital outflow from Nigeria. The analysis of Nigeria's national treasury shows that most of its financial revenue comes from oil exports. However, due to the almost blank industry and agriculture in China, almost all the necessities of life, including nearly half of the grain, need to be purchased with precious foreign exchange (the expenditure on purchasing agricultural and sideline products in 2002 was $2.008 billion). Subsequently, the rest of the national treasury was exploited by officials and stored abroad, leaving little at home. Because investors lack confidence, no one wants to invest and produce here, and the introduction of foreign capital is about zero. The more capital flows out, the weaker Nigeria's ability to improve the investment environment, the lower people's confidence in Nigeria, and then more capital will continue to flow out, which is a vicious circle. Expenditure for maintaining the normal operation of the state machinery, in addition to the above-mentioned state treasury expenditure, must also include the high salary of state civil servants, military expenditure, minimum infrastructure construction, education and health and other public welfare undertakings. In this way, no matter how much you sell oil or how big the cake is, it is not enough to cope with such a large expenditure. Look at the 2005 national budget released by Obasanjo government: the total amount is161800 million naira (about 123 billion US dollars), which is 24.5 percentage points higher than that in 2004 (indicating a high inflation rate). Among them, pension payment accounts for 1 1.6%, education accounts for 8.3%, police expenses account for 7.2%, national defense expenses account for 8.6%, workers expenses account for 7.6%, energy accounts for 7.2%, health accounts for 5.5%, and agriculture only accounts for 1.7%.

In recent years, Nigeria's fiscal deficit has been increasing, and its foreign debt has already exceeded its repayment ability. In 2005, the budget deficit was 31400 million naira, accounting for 2.9% of the national fiscal revenue. Obasanjo has repeatedly expressed in public that he hopes the developed countries will reduce Nigeria's debt, because he knows that the exhausted national treasury is really overwhelmed. Of course, those western developed countries are not philanthropists. They will agree to debt relief, but in return, they must make Nigeria pay a higher price. Perhaps more and more contracts will be signed for the purpose of plundering resources, and Nigeria's autonomy will become worse and worse.

To sum up, Nigeria's current economic situation is very grim, inflation is increasing day by day, foreign exchange reserves are shrinking, the abnormal structure that relies heavily on oil is difficult to reverse in the short term, various contradictions are complicated, and the fundamental improvement of the economy is far away. To sum up, the investment environment here has the following unfavorable factors:

1, labor and raw material costs remain high;

2. Government departments at all levels are inefficient, bureaucratic and corrupt;

3. Poor infrastructure and tight energy supply;

4, the quality of workers is not high, poor sense of responsibility, lack of technical training;

5. The logistics industry lags behind and the sales channels are not smooth.

Everything has advantages and disadvantages. After further analysis, we can draw several unique advantages of Nigeria's investment environment:

1. Due to the poor investment environment, foreign investors are reluctant to get involved, so there are few potential competitors. Unlike other countries, once an industry makes money, a large number of peers flock to it until a group is crushed;

2. If government corruption is properly used, it can be transformed into corresponding privileges, and many key departments can give the green light;

The Nigerian government is eager to get rid of the abnormal industrial structure that relies too much on oil at present and introduce foreign capital, so it gives certain preferential policies to foreign capital.

4.1.200 million population is a huge potential consumer market, and the national industry in China is zero, giving foreign investors equal opportunities for development.

A lot of idle and cheap land is not available in other countries.