By: Damian Okonkwo
The increasing rate of dollar scarcity in Nigeria today; caused by the new central bank policy for the sales of Forex to investors has pushed a lot of traders in Nigeria to keep their earnings abroad.
Observing the current situation many concerned Nigerian business moguls had called on the Federal government to quickly attend to this backdrop, considering its deadly blow on the economy. Thus, while speaking at the public presentation of the Nigerian Logistics And Supply Chain Industry Report, NLASCIR, for 2021, the Chief Executive Officer of Multimix Export Academy, Obiora Madu, has called on different government agencies including the Central Banks who are charged with monetary exchange policies for the country to quickly salvage the situation. He described the policymakers as neglecting the Forex sector of the country and relying heavily on oil. In his words, “because we have oil in Nigeria we are not paying attention to export yet. The environment is not friendly but the exporters are still struggling in exporting”.
He further described the major cause of this problem as inconsistency in government policy.
According to him, “One major problem is policies inconsistency because one government says every exporter has access to their foreign exchange then someone else says 100 percent of their foreign exchange is under control and they must sell at a certain rate”.
Furthermore, he described the second cause of the forex scarcity witnessed today to be as a result of a lack of national integrity. In his words,
“Another one is national integrity; that is another problem because everybody is afraid of Nigerians, which is affecting export because you are not getting the kind of market you want, your goods are going on discounted in prices”.
In the light of these backdrops, he stated that Nigerians today are forced to open domiciliary accounts outside Nigeria.
Further speaking on this situation, the Founder of Stanbic IBTC Bank Plc – Atedo Peterside had called on the Nigerian government to create a level playing field to attract investment into the country. He made this call in his opening remarks at the 2022 Vanguard Economic Discourse last month, in which he noted that “the absence of a level-playing field for all investors is one of the key factors responsible for the poor performance of the economy to the various National Development plans”.
