Recession: Worst is over,Says CBN Governor
1.Foreign portfolio investors have injected$1 billion into the economy in the last twoand half months
2.An Emergency Spending Bill, which will enable the government shorten the process of spending money (through award of contracts) is ready for the National Assembly
3.Close to N374 billion will be injected into the economy this week to stimulate it. So far, N420 billion has been spent
4. Social spending will soon begin and there will be capital expenditure payments
5. One million traders will get subsidised loans.
Emefiele also spoke on the success of the foreign exchange policy of the government“The only way we can improve supply at this time is to say, ‘fine, those foreign investors, those foreign portfolio investors,what do we do to make them come again?’And so we went into a flexible exchange rate regime. We opened the market, we organised the market. We’ve seen some depreciation in the currency, but I must say that at this time, we are somewhat happy that the result is paying off, because in two and a half months, we’ve seen close to about $1billion coming in as inflow into the market, and the reason this has happened is because other than just liberalising the market, we bought into the market the OTC (Over-The –Counter) features market. The Market that provides the opportunity to reduce the volatility in the foreign exchange market so that people do not bunch up their supply on the spot, so they can now go i and do their business without disturbing themselves about the exchange rate. Those were the actions that we’ve taken and today I must say that it’s been successful.”
Speaking further, Emefiele said:“Naturally, let me say this, if you are in a recession, basically what you do is to spend your way out of recession. I will tell us what has happened between January and now. I will tell you what actions have been taken to send us out of this situation.Budget, like you know was approved in May 2016 and, of course, by that time, we had started to see signs that this was going to happen. Unfortunately, the procurement process is such a long one inthe Public Service and, of course you dare not breach, or break the rules of procurement and I give you an example. When you start the procurement for an item, what happens is that you have to advertise for bids in the newspapers. That process of advertisement and calling for bids require that it has to be for 12 weeks. Twelve weeks is three months. Now when you open the bid, you’ll now see the numbers, you’ll now negotiate for the prices.
After that you’ll go to the Bureau forPublic Procurement, get the approval. Afterthat, maybe you’ll go to the Federal Executive Council to get approval. You’ll find out that almost six months would have elapsed and that is why government is saying we must shunt this process. Shunting this process means that we needto have an Emergency Spending Bill, whichhas now been prepared. I am aware it’s ready for the National Assembly to take onfor approval. What that does is, it removes all the bottlenecks involved in the process of procurement so that government can godirectly and procure items and spend money to stimulate the economy.”He said the Federal Government will do everything to revamp the economy despitethe declining revenue from our main source which is the oil sector.”Government remains undaunted, the Monetary and Fiscal policies remain undaunted and we also had in the budget a deficit of N1.8trillion; N900 billion was to be sourced locally, another N900 billion was to be sourced in foreign currency, andbecause the foreign currency is yet to come in, what the Monetary and Fiscal authorities are saying is, ‘if the need arises, it would provide what is called ‘Bridge Funding’ for the fiscal authorities so they can go ahead and spend. When the proceeds of the foreign loans come, then, we can use that to clear the bridge fund that has been done. That is allowed because this time we do not need to wait and that’s why you may have read that the minister of Finance just came up and said so far we have spent about N420 billion and, in fact, by this coming week (this week) alone another close to N374 billion would be injected into the economy to stimulate it.
The social spending will kick in; other payments for capital expenditure will also kick in. Those are the things that government is doing and I must confess to you that I’m optimistic that we have turned the bend and going forward we will still spend more that will stimulate the economy,” he said.
Emefiele added that part of the plan that has been projected for 2016 is that one million market women will benefit from subsidized loans at subsidized rates that will come from “our micro, small and medium enterprise loan.” The CBN is discussing with the fiscal authorities and the Office of the Vice President that handles social spending is also in discussion with the apex bank to see to it that “we put it in place as quickly as possible so that market women across the country can enjoy the micro, small and medium enterprise loan at subsidised prices, the CBN chief added.''Those are some of the actions we are taking and I’m optimistic that going forward you are going to see more action that will help to stimulate the economy and turn the country around again,” Emefiele said.
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