NEC asks CBN to ‘do something’ about exchange rate

The National Economic Council (NEC) on Thursday asked the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to “do something” about the exchange rate regime in Nigeria.

It called for “an urgent review” of the forex policy.

The CBN introduced a guided currency float in 2016, and while it still maintains a rate of N305/$1, the interbank rate is N315/$1 while the parallel market — generally the open market value of the naira — is now over N500/$1.

Silas Ali Agara, the deputy governor of Nasarawa state, said there was an “extensive discussion” on the foreign exchange policy with the CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele, “who appealed to council members to be patient as the situation was being managed”.

“After a brief presentation on forex policy options by the CBN governor, council members generally expressed concern over the current situation of the exchange rate and called for an urgent review of the current forex policy, especially the gap between interbank and the parallel market rates,” he said.

The council is made up of governors, ministers in the economic sector and the CBN governor, and chaired by the vice-president.

Kemi Adeosun, finance minister, said the managing director/chief executive officer of the National Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA), Uche Orji, presented the body’s annual reports and accounts for the year 2015 and update on 2016 activities.

Orji said NSIA has the highest ranking in Africa in terms of performance and capitalisation.

“Council while adopting the report of the NSIA decided to inject a fresh $250 million into the SWF sourced from the excess crude account (ECA),” she said.

The balance in ECA stood at $2.45 billion as at February 15, 2017.