By Aduragbemi Omiyale
A notable rating agency, Moody’s Ratings, has said the reforms introduced by the administration of President Bola Tinubu could reverse Nigeria’s deteriorating fiscal and external positions.
The company said this in a statement on Friday to announce the affirmation of the country’s Caa1 long-term foreign currency and local currency issuer ratings with a positive outlook.
Moody’s has also affirmed Nigeria’s foreign currency senior unsecured debt ratings at Caa1 and the foreign currency senior unsecured MTN program rating at (P)Caa1.
It explained that the positive outlook, in place since December 2023, reflects the possibility of things turning around for good for the country, especially as the external rebalancing has continued to advance since the beginning of the year after further initiatives to address the backlog of foreign exchange (FX) demand.
“The authorities’ reforms to the foreign exchange market have started to bear fruit, supporting Nigeria’s external rebalancing,” a part of the disclosure stated.
However, it warned that inflation risk remains elevated and the fiscal outlook particularly uncertain, both key reasons underpinning the affirmation of the Caa1 ratings.
Recall that a few days ago, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said the average price of goods and services increased by 34.95 per cent last month on a year-on-year basis despite the tighter monetary conditions by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
In the statement issued by Moody’s yesterday, it posited that further risks to the government’s fiscal consolidation plans come from the higher cost of oil subsidy and the likely introduction of supplementary measures to support Nigerians most affected by the inflation shock, which threatens ever-increasing interest expenses.
“The CBN has acted vigorously since February 2024 in its fight against Nigeria’s high and still-rising inflation, raising the policy interest rate by a cumulative 750bps since the beginning of the year in a series of three hikes.
“In addition, the CBN reduced on April 17, 2024, the maximum loan-to-deposit ratio for deposit money banks by 15 percentage points to 50%, intending to reinforce contractionary pressure on the money supply and prices.
“These policy changes come after a lengthy period of policy inaction by the CBN after inflation started to take off in June 2023,” another part of the statement seen by Business Post said.
“We expect that the fiscal deficit will widen significantly in 2024 to around 7 per cent of GDP amid multiple obstacles to the government’s fiscal consolidation plans,” it added.
