A former Minister of Finance, Olusegun Aganga, has explained that the naira would continue to be weak if the country remains an import-dependent country.
Aganga speaking on Thursday at the 3rd Adeola Odutola lecture, during the 51st Annual General Meeting of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria on Thurday said Nigeria must produce for local consumption and more importantly for export, for the naira to be strong.
The PUNCH reports that the local currency fell from about 450/dollar to an average of 760/dollar following the exchange reforms of President Bola Tinubu.
The local currency plunged to 1045/dollar on Thursday at the parallel market.
But Aganga speaking on the free fall naira said, “What is the wisdom in spending billions defending the naira when it continues to fall instead of investing in genuine manufacturers and exporters of high-value products that would earn Nigeria foreign income and more.”
The former Minister charged the government to declare the industrial sector a national priority sector and back it with plans, policies, and money.
“Unlike the trillions spent on subsidies, bailouts, the Agric Anchor Borrowers Programme, the refineries, I can assure you that every naira, no matter how large, that is well spent on the strategic industrial sectors can be easily recovered and will deliver tremendous benefits to the economy and the nation,” he said.
This is rightly and eloquently put by the former minister. Eight years of the Buhari administration did not help the Nigerian economy.It makes absolutely no logical or economica sense that a country with two refineries cannot refine its petroleum resources in those two refineries, or at least see to it that that one is functioning. It is all the more laughable that these resources are shipped to other countries for refining, after which exhorbitant fees are charged for the refining services, and and shipped to Nigerian consumers. This is preposterous. That aspect alone would have been the right rack on which Nigeria could hang its hat to fend off any momentum which the free – falling naira could rest on, and for that matter, stop. Instead the non-thinking, economically brain dead President embarked on a borrowing spree that accelerated the free fall ness.
It a shame