The Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA) has urged the government to look beyond the politics of the Naira redesign and focus on the damaging effects on businesses and the economy at large.
Speaking in Lagos, the Director-General, Adewale-Smatt Oyerinde stated that “it is unfortunate that too much attention has been placed on the politics of the Naira redesign with Government and in deed, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) shifting attention away from the damaging effect of the cash squeeze on businesses and the already fragile economy as a whole. No matter how well intentioned, a good policy with poor implementation plan will ultimately fail, eroding the little gains the economy would have made”.
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Giving insight into the real issues with the Naira redesign Policy, the NECA Director-General averred that “it should be on record that the CBN Naira redesign policy with the objectives as stated by the CBN is laudable. However, like many of the Bank’s Policy initiatives, this is also flawed by improper and shortsightedness in implementation. For a definitive Monetary policy as the Naira design, it is expected that the CBN will not only take lessons from other countries like India, Myanmar, Australia, Venezuela, Zimbabwe and the European Union, who witnessed various degrees of successes and failures when they implanted their currency redesign, but will also do a thorough analysis and simulation of likely social and economic challenges that might arise and definitive response to those challenges. Thus far, it does not seem that the CBN understands the challenges, nor have solutions to the economic issues, thereby allowing speculators and economic saboteurs to have a field day at the expense of legitimate businesses and the economy.”
Speaking further, Mr. Adewale-Smatt noted that “in the last few weeks, with the cash squeeze and the purchasing ability of Nigerians greatly impaired by the shameless implementation of the Policy, the economy has witnessed a significant bashing with report stating that the Real sector witnessed about 40% drop in productive activities. As the cash crush continues, thousands of productive hours are lost daily on queues by employees and many cannot even get to work. The value chain in the formal and informal sector with over N10billion cash transaction daily is almost destroyed with consequences for employment, business sustainability and National development”.
While making recommendations for a quick resolution of the challenges, the NECA Boss urged that “while the CBN’s desire for a cashless economy is commendable, it should not, in the process exclude those it intended to include. We urge that critical and immediate effort should be made to improve or upgrade alternative routes to cash, thereby ensuring seamless transactions before going digital. The series of actions being taken by the CBN now in the form of having Agent Naira Swap, etc. are afterthoughts, after the reality of resistant by Nigerians. It is callous to deprive citizens of the new Naira notes after cajoling them to deposit the old ones in the Banks.
“We urge the CBN to sanction the commercial Banks that have been found to be complicit in the whole show of shame, even as the CBN cannot extricate itself from being complicit. As an immediate action, we align with the position of the Council of State that the CBN should release more new Naira notes into the economy or allow the use of the old ones, pending a time when it will demonstrate competence by not always putting the cart before the horse in the implementation of Monetary policies”, he concluded.
