The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, says the Apex bank has no immediate plan to devalue the Naira despite the continued downward slide of the Naira. Emefiele said this after the meeting of the bank’s Monetary Policy Committee yesterday January 26th.
“We don’t have any immediate plan to devalue the naira. However, we are already working on different scenarios; the models are being worked on.
We have them and as much as possible, we will look at scenarios under different crude prices and we will continue to discuss at management and monetary policy committee levels. We will try as much as possible to continue to share our thoughts with the fiscal authorities with the view to harmonising our positions to ensure that notwithstanding the drop in crude prices, that we are able to continue to run government and do business. We are very conscious of this and we know that we are at an era where the drop in or low crude price will remain for a long time with us. It is not going to be like in 2008 or 2009 where it was just for about eight months. So far, we have seen this for 14 months now and there doesn’t seem to be any light at the end of the tunnel.”he said
He said Nigerians should brace up for a longer period of low government revenues from oil sources due to the declining oil price
“The committee observed that the last episode of low oil prices in 2005 lasted for a maximum period of eight months. However, the current episode of lower oil prices is projected to remain over a very long period. Consequently, it is imperative to brace for a longer period of low government revenues from oil sources, which would necessitate hard and uncomfortable choices as the economy transits to more sustainable sources of revenue, consistent with the economic realities and strategic objectives of the country. In the circumstance, certain trade-offs must be envisaged and duly accommodated.”