The Federal Government should take a multifaceted approach, including addressing oil theft, according to the Nigeria Employers Consultative Association (NECA), in order to increase foreign exchange inflows and strengthen the Naira.
In a press conference announcing the upcoming 2nd edition of the Employers’ summit in Lagos yesterday, Mr. Wale-Smatt Oyerinde, Director General of NECA, suggested this: “We want to call on the current administration that for you to actually address the issue of forex, you must take a multidimensional approach while we focus on dealing with the oil theft in the Niger Delta, we should also focus on dealing with the rapid increase in oil production so that we can address the forex issue.”
“It is also crucial that we harness the quantity of natural resources that we have in this country so that we can become net exporters, not just of cocoa and rubber but of all the natural resources that we have in this country, that will increase the pool of foreign exchange, and the more forex you have, the less pressure you have from citizens requesting that forex and the stronger the potential of your local currency to grow,” he continued.
Oyerinde gave the following justification for the Summit’s emphasis on trade and non-oil exports: “Historically, the Nigerian economy was vibrant during the pre- and post-independence years because of enormous gains from non-oil exports like cocoa, cotton, groundnut, palm oil, etc.
