President Bola Tinubu says Nigeria will unleash more measures to revive the economy as Naira, the nation’s currency appreciates against the dollar in response to the foreign exchange harmonisation policy.
Tinubu said that this was in line with the current appreciation in the value of the Naira due to various steps taken to curb activities of illegal money speculators.
Chief Ajuri Ngelale, Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, made this known to statehouse Correspondents on Friday in Abuja.
“Nigerians at large have witnessed the seismic shifts that have taken place within the nation’s foreign exchange market over the course of the last several days and the strengthening of the Nigerian Naira against the United States dollar.
“This is a time to deepen our efforts to dig in and to work harder, which is why President Tinubu has approved a series of interventions to ensure that we see a mass strengthening of the Nigerian Naira against all other global currencies.”
Ajuri said the President appealed to Nigerians to use this period to imbibe the culture of patronising and purchasing Nigeria products across all value chains.
“There is an intention that we must have on this issue that we want a strong currency, we want the spending power of our people to go up.
“We want every Naira and Kobo we earn to be more valuable not just here but when we travel abroad, the way to achieve that is by doing just this.”
Ajuri said the President demanded every Nigerian to join in this effort of turning the tide against unscrupulous citizens working to undermine the economy.
He urged Nigerians to blow the whistle on any activity that is drawing the economy to the brink, in order to save the country and cut cost of governance.
Ngelale said the President would ensure that micro small and medium scale enterprises in the country have what they needed to get through this difficult period.
He said the President has approved the Presidential Conditional Grant Scheme, in which over one million Nigerian businesses would be empowered.
”This is money they will not have to pay back of up to 50,000 Naira per Nano enterprise, with over one million Nano enterprises being selected and granted these funds within each and every local government area of the federation.
”In addition to that, over 150 billion naira has been dispersed from the Bank of Industry and made up on single digit interest rate loans of up to N2 million to small and medium scale enterprises across all local government areas of the federation.”
He said the construction and manufacturing sectors of the economy that employed more than 1,000 Nigerians would also be given a facility to encourage them and boost employment.
”The President has approved more than N75 billion to be dispersed to 75 large scale manufacturers across all states of the federation. These are going to be manufacturers who employ over 1,000 Nigerians in each of their facilities and industries.
”We are going to ensure that they have the support that they need at the large scale, so that Nigerian families who rely on these large scale businesses are protected.
”We want to see our large scale industries, not just refuse to fire people but to actively increase and expand their hiring at this difficult time.”
He said that it was in this light of strengthening the system for better service delivery, that the President approved a new remuneration for the judicial arm of government.
”This is very important in the sense that we can dramatically reduce the impact that corruption has always played in the judiciary, which has an impact on not just the ability of Nigerians to get effective justice in the country.
”But also to ensure that businesses who we are now asking around the world to invest in Nigeria have a judicial system that they can trust with respect to any litigation that can arise from business practice.”
He said the appreciable value of the Naira would also impact positively on the proposals of the minimum wage review coming up in April.
”What we do not want is a situation in which the minimum wage continues to be what it has always been in the history of our country, which is a moving goalpost.
”If we do not get a firm grip on the value of our currency and it continues to be a volatile, devaluing asset, then whatever we do with the national minimum wage is going to essentially become a moot point.
”We are focused on ensuring that we arrive at a new minimum wage that states can afford, and that we’ll deal with all of the needs of Nigerian families across the country.
”We also want to ensure that what we peg it at is something that is sustainable over a number of years, based on the long term, you know, stability that we want to bring to the Nigerian Naira with interventions we’re presently making.”