The Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy Wale Edun, has announced the Federal Government’s plan to mop up foreign exchange outside the system to address the current scarcity and strengthen the Naira.
Edun disclosed this during his maiden press conference in Abuja on Friday, stressing that the fiscal authorities would work with the Central Bank (CBN) to attract foreign exchange into the country from different sources.
Throwing more light on the plan to salvage the Naira, Edun said: “There are substantial sources of foreign exchange open to Nigeria.
“There is a lot of cash outside the system which if brought into the system increases the money supply of dollars and increases the reserves.
“Thought is being given to that. There are funds in domiciliary accounts which, if you give people the incentive, they will utilize those for investment in Nigeria.
“Nigerians in Nigeria have huge holdings of foreign currency in financial institutions abroad.
“We need to provide the environment that brings those funds home so that the owners of these foreign currencies will choose to invest in the Nigerian economy rather than foreign economies, which is what they are doing now.
“We also have a huge source of funds from the diaspora, Nigerians living and working abroad who have families here and who are interested in keeping a presence here. We have to encourage them to save in Nigeria perhaps by improving payment mechanisms, etc.”
Government, according to him, also expects more foreign exchange from “recovery of oil production which will provide additional foreign exchange liquidity and automatically provide additional naira resources to government.”
“There’s plenty of hope and it is our determination to put in place the kind of structures and incentive framework that brings Nigerian money abroad and even Nigerian money outside the system into the financial and economic system to work to create jobs for Nigerians,” he emphasised.