OSINBAJO'S RECOMMENDATIONS FOR NIGERIA ON HOW TO EFFECTIVELY MANAGE ITS FOREIGN EXCHANGE RATE

Yemi Osinbajo, the vice president, discussed the necessity for good coordination facets of the Nigerian economy as well as properly managing the foreign exchange rate.

He spoke this morning in the State House Conference Center at the Presidential Villa, which President Muhammadu Buhari had opened for a ministerial retreat.

The Vice President stated there are economic concerns in his presentation, “The Buhari Administration: Reflections on the Journey So Far,”.

The first, in his words, is the coordination of monetary and fiscal policy. Our economic performance and planning have suffered unnecessarily as a result of the collapse of that synergy. The fiscal goals for manufacturing and industry must align with the imports that are eligible for foreign exchange.

Even while the fiscal arm is typically anticipated to take the lead in such choices, at the moment only the monetary arm makes decisions about import eligibility for foreign exchange, for example.

“Our currency rate management continues to be a problem,” Osinbajo continued. Demand is vastly, continues to put severe downward pressure on the value of the naira relative to convertible currencies.

On the one hand, we've attempted demand control and rationing, but they didn't really work because setting the price when a huge arbitrage is revealed in the parallel market only serves to increase the chance for huge rents.

Additionally, it will increase the backlog of remittances for international companies who wish to repatriate their earnings. The topic that has to be discussed now and moving forward is how to best control the situation by identifying a transparent, confidence-boosting mechanism, moderating demand.

A more market-driven strategy in my opinion. Within a managed float, some price discovery is undoubtedly necessary. The Foreign Exchange Market (FEM), interbank Foreign Exchange Market (IFEM), several iterations of the Dutch Auction System (DAS), Wholesale Dutch Auction System (W-DAS), and Retail Dutch Auction System are controlled price discovery (R-DAS).

It would seem that the rules were clear and there was a fair amount of stability.

Meanwhile, Buhari praised his administration, saying it carried out high-impact projects all around, needs and ambitions of the people.

Buhari officially opened achievements in a number of sectors, including agriculture, the economy, infrastructure, security, health, and anti-corruption.

The purpose of the retreat program was to assess the development since the second iteration, which took place in October 2021.

Uhuru Kenyatta, Kenya's most recent president and the exercise's keynote speaker, is present.

More than 3,800 km of new roads had been built around, that the Nigerian Air Force had acquired 38 new aircraft to help in the war against insurgency.

According to Buhari, 38.7 million Nigerians, or 35% of the overall target population for vaccination against COVID-19, had received their full dose of the vaccine.

He uttered: The completion of the 326 km Itakpe-Ajaokuta-Warri rail line and completion of the over 156.5 km modernization project with extension to Lagos Port, Apapa, are some of the noteworthy accomplishments.

The current administration has built 408km of highways, 2,499km of SUKUK roads.

One of the most important of these projects is the construction of the Second Niger Bridge, a 1.9 km span connecting Anambra and Delta States with a 10.30 km approach road. Another is the continuing repair of the Abuja-Kaduna-Zaria-Kano Road.