By Adedapo Adesanya
Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr Godwin Emefiele, has revealed that there is no implication to the directive of President Muhammadu Buhari on the restriction of foreign exchange to food imports into the country.
While speaking at the induction retreat of Mr Buhari’s ministers-designate on Monday, August 19, 2019, Mr Emefiele said the President’s directive was in line with the CBN’s foreign exchange policies that started since 2016.
“If you recall, we started with about 41 items (food and non-food items), because we believe that those items can be produced in the country.
“As we stand today, there are about 43 items on that list and I will say substantially most of them are food items,” he informed newsmen at the event.
“The issue is that we are saying if we have an item or a food that can be produced in the country, why should we waste scarce foreign exchange to import those items into the country, when those can be produced in the country,” he said.
Mr Emefiele further reprimanded critics who he said misquoted the comments of the President, stating that Mr Buhari was not properly represented when he made reference to the matter in Katsina State last week explaining that the same policy has been in place since 2016.
“The attempt to misrepresent the comments of Mr President is very unfair and unfortunate but what we would say from the Central Bank of Nigeria is that the President made this comment purely to strengthen the position of the central bank to say he believes in what the CBN has been doing since 2016 and that there is a need for us to reinforce that,” he added.
Commenting on the President’s directive, he added that the forex restriction placed on importers does not refer to all food items but includes foodstuffs that can be produced in Nigeria.
He reiterated that 43 items had already placed under the import restriction list, also confirming that more products would go on the list, as long as they can be locally made.
He said, “We will make sure that more of these goods will be on the list of products that are going to be banned from gaining access to foreign exchange in the banking industry of Nigeria, not only from the source of the CBN.”
According to the CBN chief, this line of action would enable the creation of employment as the country is faced with a high level of unemployment: “Presently, people are complaining that the rate of unemployment is high, which to a great extent has led to insecurity in the country. There is no reason to allow people to import food that can be made in the nation,” Mr Emefiele added.
Modupe Gbadeyanka