President Muhammadu Buhari has said that he is yet to be convinced that Nigeria and its people will derive any tangible benefit from an official devaluation of the naira.Presidential spokesman Femi Adesina quoted Buhari as saying this in Nairobi lateWednesdaynight at an interactive meetingwith Nigerians living in Kenya.Buhari noted that while export-driven economies could benefit from devaluation of their currencies, devaluation would only lead to further inflation and hardship for the poor and middle classes in Nigeria’s import-dependent economy.The president maintained that he had no intention of bringing further hardship on the nation’s poor who, according to him, have already suffered enoughLikening devaluing the Naira to having it “killed”, Buhari said proponents of devaluation would have to work much harder to convince him that ordinary Nigerians would gain anything from it.Buhari also rejected suggestions that the Central Bank of Nigeria should resume the sale of foreign exchange to Bureaux de Change (BDCs), saying that the Bureau de Change business had become a scam anda drain on the nation’s economy.“We had just 74 of the bureaux in 2005, now they have grown to about 2,800,” President Buhari was quoted to have noted.Buhari was also said to have alleged that some bank and government officials used surrogates to run the BDCs and prosper at public expense by obtaining foreign exchange from government at official ratesand selling it at much higher rates.“We will use our foreign exchange for industry, spare parts and the development of needed infrastructure. We don’t have the Dollars to give to the BDCs. Let them go and get it from wherever they can, otherthan the Central Bank”, Buhari was quoted as telling the gathering.The president also reaffirmed his conviction that about a third of petroleum subsidy payments under the previous administration was bogus, saying “They just stamped papers and collected our foreign exchange”.He was said to have appealed to Nigeriansstudying abroad to bear with his administration as it strived to address the challenges they were facing as a result of new foreign exchange measures.The president said he was optimistic that the Nigerian economy would stabilize soon with the efficient implementation of measures and policies introduced by his government.
Credit: dailytrust
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