The Central Bank of Nigeria has authorised commercial banks
to freely trade foreign exchange at any rate.
The authorisation means that banks now have the power to
sell forex at a market-determined rate.
It was gathered that some banks have pegged the USD to Naira
rate at N699 to N750, suggesting that Nigeria is now operating a freely
floating exchange rate in line with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s pledge to
unify the rate.
Reacting to the development in an Arise Television interview
on Wednesday, Dr. Andrew Nevin, the Advisory Partner & Chief Economist of
PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), said the unification of foreign exchange rates
will impact the country dramatically by boosting investment opportunities in
Nigeria.
“What has been happening is that CBN is taking dollars from
the Federation’s account and giving to privileged individuals at N411 to US
dollar while the real price is N700 to N750 to the Dollar, we don’t really know
because they’ve removed price transparency.
”What happens is that the state government cannot pay their
pensioners. That fundamental issue will be addressed by the development. Now
the state government will get full value for its dollar.
“It will have a dramatic impact on the fiscal structure of
the country when we stop giving the dollar to privileged individuals. We get
better investment, more fair use of the country’s resources and improved
business environment, this will strengthen Nigeria’s currency”, he stated.
For years, Nigeria has maintained a tightly controlled
official exchange rate as the country’s forex reserves hit new lows. While the
CBN maintained an artificial rate of $1/N462.
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Tinubu is the Messiah
ReplyDeleteNigeria shouldn’t be measuring its economic performance in dollars when many countries are shifting from using dollars to Trade. Nigeria must dedollarise his economy against his local currency NAIRA. This is what BRICS is all about, and Nigeria wants to join the new world order, and this is fantastic. The government must put in all mechanisms so that the dollar will to go back as it was in the 60-70’s. And this is the only way way he can boost his economy. Nigeria can not be paying for US internal indebtedness. He must therefore dump the dollar. Kenya has recently been importing his fuel from Saudi Arabia in Shillings and no longer in dollars, and have saved over 17 billion shillings. What’s Nigeria waiting for. If the U.S. is against currency swap, the government should go elsewhere and get whatever they want in other countries especially in China and Russia
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