The Coalition of Civil Society Groups (CCSG) has applauded numerous initiatives implemented by the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, to stabilize the naira and reposition the country’s economy.
Civil society organizations have also decried economic sabotage in the forex market, claiming that the economy is experiencing significant inflation due to an excessive gap between official bank exchange rates for the dollar and the naira.
According to Vanguard, Messrs Etuk Bassey Williams and Abubakar Ibrahim, the coalition president and secretary, addressed journalists at a solidarity demonstration in Abuja in support of President Muhammadu Buhari and the CBN Governor, urging Nigerians to continue to support the apex bank’s policies.
What they are saying
They said: “The achievements by the Government under the leadership of President Buhari cannot be possible without the support of the able lieutenants appointed to head the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) under the able leadership of Mr Godwin Emeficle who has made efforts to turn around the negative indices of the economy as a result of good policies.
“We applaud the recorded achievements in the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), the small Farm holders. We also appreciate his effort towards assisting our industries to meet up with international standards in the quality of goods produced for export.”
While welcoming the CBN’s launch of the e-naira, the coalition expressed confidence that the measure will encourage economic activity, resulting in the development of jobs and wealth.
They said: “We frown at the economic sabotage going on in the Forex market. We condemn a situation where the disparity between the official bank exchange rates for dollar/naira will be too high, thereby creating inflation.
“We applaud the sincere effort to salvage the naira, the CBN stop of sales of Forex to Bureau De Change (BDC) Operators who exploit and artificially inflate dollar/naira exchange. We applaud this move to discourage illicit financial flow, BDC racketeering and indiscriminate round-tripping.
“We, hereby, call on the CBN Governor to suspend the activities of the BDC operators in totality and supply money to the commercial Banks, We also demand that a monitoring committee that comprises of EFCC, CBN and NFIU be set up to cheek and arrest BDC operators who go to the Banks to buy off the dollar using fake application.”
