Wednesday, 8 June 2016

Nigeria's pledge to float currency is a false start

In late May the Central Bank of Nigeria Governor Godwin Emefiele told market participants that the bank was preparing to remove the peg it had against the US dollar because it could no longer support its currency, the Naira, after haemorrhaging foreign currency reserves due to the slump in oil prices that created a vacuum between the funding and disbursements in its trading account.

No date was given at the time however Emefiele said it was "a matter of days" before the country would introduce a flexible exchange rate policy with authorities at work to make it happen. This was in sharp contrast to what Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari had envisioned being a fierce defender of the peg in an effort to shield his citizens from abnormally high inflation.

It now turns out that the Nigerian finance ministry is evading the implementation of such measures by stalling investors and refusing to give a set date to when they can expect the new policy to take effect.

What looked to be a positive reform in acknowledging the faults of the current system and proposing an overhaul of the central mechanism that allows foreign trade to take place has effectively shown the differing views between the CBN and the Nigerian government.

Firstly investors detest political squabbling, putting it down to the creation of uncertainty in the pathway moving forward with crucial policy changes needed to revitalise the economy. If an uncertain environment exists investors opt to sit on the sidelines.

Added to this the Nigerian government's bureaucratic processes, which must be said isn't isolated to this country only, strangles the progression of its economy and the need to realise that it cannot be a fixture when attempting to attract investors to its shores becomes more evident when an outcome such as this begins to take shape.

Lastly it highlights the government's underestimation of the enormity of the task which doesn't bode well for confidence in their ability to manage the domestic financial system, generating further risks that require more return to be poised to invest in the country, a situation that only gets compounded by the current economic downturn.  

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