‘Naira Heading For Exchange Rate Of N700 To A Dollar

Due to the persistent free fall of the value of the Nigerian currency- Naira- the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Association of National Accountants of Nigeria, on Friday, called for the review of the country’s foreign exchange policy.

According to the two professional bodies, if Nigeria doesn’t review the current exchange policy, the naira would continue to crash. As at Thursday, the Naira was trading at N391 to $1 at the parallel forex market.

President, Association of National Accountants of Nigeria, Chukwuemeka Nzom, while speaking in Ilorin, Kwara State, said the fall of the Naira had adversely affected financial and economic activities in Nigeria as well as financial institutions.

“The current crash of Naira is affecting everybody and institutions including banks and accountants because it is leading to galloping and hyper-inflation. Prices of goods and services have gone up.”

“The current policy is concentrating only on the management of demand; it is not addressing the issue of supply. I am not talking about supply from the sale of crude oil because there is not much we can do about that. But there is a lot we can do about supply from other sources, from export proceeds, from our people in the Diaspora, from multinational companies that need to bring forex here, from donor agencies that have projects here that they need to execute in Naira.”

“These are other channels of supply, but if our policy is not right, the supply from those sources will not come. The only way to encourage supply from the other sources is to liberalise the influence in those areas. If people bring the money in, let them exchange it at the market rate and not at the rate that the Central Bank of Nigeria has fixed.”