Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, has urged Nigerians to accept economic reality as the government will be forced to adopt some hard economic policies due to low oil prices.
The CBN boss stated this yesterday during the bi-monthly monetary policy committee meeting in Abuja.
“It is imperative to brace up for a longer period of low government revenues from oil sources, which would necessitate hard and uncomfortable choices as the economy transits to more sustainable sources of revenue, consistent with the economic realities and strategic objectives of the country.
“Under the circumstances, certain tradeoffs must be envisaged and duly accommodated,” he said.
“In view of the foregoing, the imperative for consistently sound and coordinated macroeconomic policy has become inevitable. In the medium term within which monetary policy is cast, the need to allow policy to produce the desired outcomes becomes a key consideration in the policy mix.”
Emefiele said the committee believes that oil prices are projected to remain low over a very long period.
As a result, he said the bank is fine-tuning its framework for foreign exchange management with a view to ensuring a more effective and liquid foreign exchange market, taking into account Nigeria’s strategic development priorities.
Asked whether Nigerians should expect naira devaluation, Emefiele said that the country would maintain the status quo for now.
“I can’t answer that question at this time but the only answer I can give to you is that we are already working on different scenarios, the models are being worked on, we have them, and we will look at them as much as possible.
“We will look at scenarios under different crude prices. And we will continue at management and monetary policy committee,” he said.
“So far, we have seen this now for almost about 14 months and there is no green light yet at and end of the tunnel.”
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