A former governor of the Central Bank Nigeria, CBN, Charles Soludo, has called for the unification of foreign exchange market.
Spokesman to CBN Isaac Okoroafor had recently defended the CBN’s stand, saying despite criticisms, CBN would not drop the policy nor bow to “self-serving” interests.
“We have observed with great concern the continued and unwarranted attack on our policies by a group of Nigerians, whose real interests, findings have shown, are anything near altruistic, but rather self-serving and unpatriotic,” Okoroafor said.
But speaking at a conference in Lagos, Mr Soludo called for the complete elimination of the “41 restricted items” by the apex bank if it hopes to achieve a unified exchange rate regime.
“Eliminate the so-called 41 items. You cannot unify the forex market with those kinds of things. You have two ways, if you don’t want things to come in.
“You can use the exchange rate and the commercial policy, raise the tariffs on them. If it is expensive for people to import, they will not import them. That is how to do it on a sustainable basis.
“As day follows night, if not done by this regime, subsequent regime will eliminate those kinds of things. The current way we are doing it is ad hoc, costly, discretionary and harmful to the economy,” he said.
