President Muhammadu Buhari has launched the Central Bank of
Nigeria (CBN) digital currency, the e-Naira.
While launching the digital currency, at the State
House,Abuja, this afternoon, the president commended the CBN Governor, Mr.
Godwin Emefiele, for his efforts towards ensuring a more efficient payment
system in the country.
In his address, Mr. Emefiele announced a new financial instrument titled “The 100
for 100 PPP – Policy on Production and Productivity,” to reduce the nation’s
overdependence on imports.
According to the governor, the instrument “will be anchored in our Development Finance Department under my direct supervision.
“Under this policy the CBN will advertise, screen,
scrutinize and financially support 100 targeted private sector companies in 100
days, beginning from 01 November 2021, and rolling over every 100 days with a
new set of 100 companies, whose names will be published in National Dailies for
Nigerians to verify and confirm.
“The purpose of this instrument is to take further steps to
reverse our over reliance on imports.”
According to Mr. Emefiele, working through banks, the
financial instrument would be available to their customers in critical areas to
boost the production and productivity, with a view to immediately transforming
and jumpstarting the productive base of
the economy.
He explained, “After these 100 projects by companies in the
first hundred days from November 1, we will take the next 100
companies/projects for another 100 days beginning February 1, 2022, and then
another 100 companies for another 100 days beginning from May 1, 2022.
“We believe that if we target and support the right
companies and projects, we will see a significant, 14 measurable and verifiable
increase in local production and productivity, reduction in certain imports,
increase in non-oil exports, and improvements in the FX-generating capacity of
the economy.
“This, in my view, is the best and most sustainable way to
address the Naira’s value – whether in hard currency or digital eNaira –
through production, production and more production.”
How SAP in 1986 started Naira’s free fall
The CBN boss lamented that the Structural Adjustment
Programme of the then government administration in 1986, under the
International Monetary Fund, plunged the Naira into a free fall from which it
has not recovered.
Mr. Emefiele’s words, “Mr. President, as you make ground
breaking reforms, there have been continuing debates on the true value of the
Naira.
“Rather than worry
today on the direction of the exchange rate, let us take a step back and
analyze how we got here in the first place.
“Please recall that since the advent of the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) led Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) in 1986, and the
introduction of the Second Tier Foreign Exchange (SFEM) market, the Naira has
been on a one-way free fall from parity to the US Dollar in 1984 to over
N410/USD today.
“Some 35 years later,
we have not been able to achieve the many promises and objectives of that
programme. Instead, what we have seen is widespread import dependency, which has
wiped out most of our production and manufacturing bases and exported all our
jobs in the process.
“What has happened to the massive textile factories across
our nation such that we import almost all cotton products when we are rich in
cotton?
“What has happened to our vehicle assembly plants across the
nation such that we import most vehicles and have become a massive dumping
ground for dying second-hand vehicles?
“What has happened to our rubber plantations through which
we made the best tyres and rubber products in the world?
“What has happened to our groundnut pyramids? What has
happened to our Cocoa farms? What has happened to our palm oil mills?
“Under your leadership, Mr. President, we must stop this
decline for good! We must return to massive homemade production; we must get
our people working again. We must create the economic environment for massive
domestic production and significant non-oil exports.”
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