If the President believes that sending the Secret Police to arrest currency traders will aid the economy in anyway then we should be troubled.
lets be clear, Nigeria leads a loan, a foreign currency loan, our Current Account is in a deficit, we need to fund imports. There is also nothing wrong with debts, loans and deficits…..however the management of the Nigerian economy today is shocking.
The Nigerian economy is in a stagflatory recession with a looming famine. To date, i am not aware of any clear plan to exit the recession, nor any program to diversify government revenues away from oil, or a pathway to supporting SMEs, nothing. The Presidents Medium Term Expenditure Framework has been returned back to the Presidency for being “empty”.The economy has no economic manager, The Finance Minister is forever “injecting” funds to the states that are dissipated. The Central Bank of Nigeria has graduated from cutting trees to “save” the Naira to creating an interbank market in name alone….the budget Minister does not know how much Nigeria owes..
To be clear, not everything is the fault of the administration, Crude oil is below $50, with no pathway to appreciation, but this is key to repayment of a foreign currency loan.
By asking for $29.9b, the administration is in effect seeking permission to borrow and hand over to the economic team an amount in excess of our foreign reserves? what if they manage it the way they have managed the funds earmarked to feed Internally displaced Persons in the North East?
I am not filled with confidence…
Based on the above, I will reverse myself. i now believe it will not be in the interest of Nigeria to allow the Buhari administration to borrow $29.9b…they have not shown competence in managing
