Following the economical crisis, Mr Soji Adetunji, a member of the House of Representative said that the naira would continue to strengthen against the dollar, as long as techniques introduced to check the free fall of the country’s currency are sustained.
Adetunji, representing Ifelodun/Boripe/Odo Otin Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives on Saturday, spoke in Ikirun, Osun State during the distribution of N10m to selected members of his constituency.
Against the increased of naira by the Central Bank of Nigeria, most times, the naira has been appreciating against the dollar.
Some of the reforms introduced by the apex bank included the unification of exchange rate windows, liberalisation of the FX market, clearance of FX backlog obligations for banks and airlines, implementation of a Price Verification System, imposition of limits on banks’ Net Open Position, removal of the daily cap of N2bn on remunerable Standing Deposit Facility, and overhaul of the Bureau de Change segment, among others.
Adetunji urged for a ban on certain imported goods and challenged the country to produce more to earn foreign exchange.
The former banker said, “The naira will continue to appreciate against the dollar if we sustain the current techniques. Without castigating the former regime, we know what was in operation then. When a new regime came around, the situation got worse, but when they put some monetary policies in place, definitely, the dollar had to fall.
“We are not a producing country. So, we don’t earn foreign exchange. We consume, and we don’t produce enough. That is one of the causes of the problem. Also, there are a lot of things that we allow in Nigeria’s economy that other countries may never allow. Like this cryptocurrency and others like that.
“Now that the Federal Government has put some measures in place to curtail all these, definitely, the demand for the dollar will go down. But there is still a lot the Federal Government must do.”
Adetunji urged that the government should ban imported goods.
“If we consume local goods more than foreign, definitely there will be inflow. We need to do a lot of export too. If we have a surplus, there will be a drop in the price of commodities,” he claimed.
The lawmaker said the gesture was to lessen the hardship effects of the economic crises on them also on the empowerment programme for his constituents.
