Emefiele Blames Naira Fall On U.S Policy, Importation

The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Media and Publicity, Senator Sabi Abdullahi, who stated this when he briefed journalists at the end of the closed-door meeting with the CBN boss, added that Emefiele further attributed the fall in the naira to Nigeria’s over dependence on foreign goods.

According to the CBN Governor, other factors like the declining commodity prices and the geo-political tensions along important trading routes were equally injurious to the naira value.

Abdullahi said, “He (Emefiele) touched on the global economy conditions in which he informed us that we are not immune from external shocks that are currently going on in the world. These shocks include the following: declining commodity prices, geo-political tensions along important trading routes and tightening of monetary policies in the United States of America.

“The Senate appreciated the need to support the various policies being formulated to strengthen the currency.”

Abdullahi said that the Senate acknowledged the pains experienced y Nigerians as regards the shortage of foreign exchange for legitimate businesses.

He, however, said that “having carefully considered the policies of the CBN, the upper legislative chamber would like to commend and support them because they were mostly geared towards increasing local production, creating jobs in the country, safeguarding the commonwealth and expanding economic opportunities and growth.

“It is, therefore, critical that we all join our hands together to seek both short-term and long-term solutions to our underlying problems of non-diversification of foreign exchange earnings and revenues rather than pointing fingers at who did what and who’s to blame.

“The Senate believes strongly in the resilience of the Nigerian economy and the ingenuity of the Nigerian people, and as such, we are confident that we will all pull through these difficulties and come out as an equitable and prosperous nation,” he said.