By Chinwendu Obienyi
With the worsening foreign exchange (FX) crisis which has sparked serious concerns among citizens, experts have urged the Federal government, the monetary and fiscal authorities to step up efforts in restoring investors’ confidence.
According to them, there is a need for the country to focus on strong backward integration programmes tailored towards curbing import pressures, where it can actively manufacture through the whole value chain and economic diversification.
The statement is coming after Daily Sun investigations revealed that the Naira has hit a record low of N573/$1 at the parallel market on Monday. However, it improved yesterday, pegging at N570/$1, while checks at the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window revealed an increase of 0.09 per cent, pegging at N413.68/$1.
This situation has led to the nation’s stock market dropping about 0.26 per cent in two consecutive sessions while investors have lost N54 billion due to sell-offs in highly capitalized stocks as trading sentiments have significantly weakened.
Since the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) banned sales of foreign exchange to Bureau de Change (BDCs) operators, the value of the Naira had, within two months, depreciated by 16.1 per cent or N80 from N495 at which it was being sold in July, to N575 as at September 20, 2021.
The last time the exchange rate depreciated this quickly was in early 2017, when the rate jumped from around N450 to over N500 to the dollar. However, during the last Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting, the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, stated that the apex bank would not return to selling foreign exchange to BDCs while adding that the operators defeated their purpose of existence to provide FX to retail users and had become wholesale and illegal dealers.