By Babalola Seyi
In light of the cashless policy, the Central Bank of Nigeria, or CBN, has advised Nigerians to use alternative payment methods including eNaira and online banking.
This is in light of the difficulties that Nigerians are now experiencing as a result of the naira redesign and naira swap.
Speaking on the theme, “Promoting Value Addition for Economic Growth and Development”, he stated that promoting value addition to the country’s exports is critical for economic growth and development at this critical time.
Represented by Mohammed Abbah, Director, Capacity Development of CBN, he noted that “the CBN Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, has always said that the policy is not targeted anyone or any group of persons, rather, it derived from the Bank’s in-house analysis to strengthen our macroeconomic fundamentals and better our socio-economic conditions.”
On the naira redesign, he said that the principal aim of the bank is to make the country’s monetary policy decisions more efficacious, assuring that Nigerians would observe that there has been a downward trend in inflation, and the exchange rates have been relatively stable.
He added that CBN aimed to increase financial inclusion in the country by reducing the number of the unbanked population and to support the efforts of the security agencies in combating banditry and ransom-taking in Nigeria through this programme.
According to him, the CBN is not unmindful of the challenges some citizens have had to face in the past few weeks in efforts to get money from their banks or other alternative channels, stressing that there have been reports of occasional transaction failures.
He assured that the Nigerian payment system infrastructure is robust enough to handle the surge in transaction volumes across all channels.
Osita observed that the Produce, Add Value and Export, PAVE, option of the CBN is similar to the export-led industrialization policy in South-East Asia, which transformed the economic fortunes of the Asian-Tigers-Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan, pointing out that the concept designed to be key for fast-tracking a bucket of substitutes to crude oil export while PAVE encourages backward integration for the local production of select items.
Through PAVE, he stated that CBN seeks to create a proper linkage between agriculture and the manufacturing sectors of the Nigerian economy while also providing a cushion against the volatility in crude oil production and export.
