Headline

CIBN supports Tinubu on exchange rate unification

Published

1 month ago

August 19, 2023

CIBN supports Tinubu on exchange rate unification

The Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN) has commended President Bola Tinubu for unifying the Naira exchange rate to save the country from financial crisis.

The President/ Chairman of Council of CIBN, Dr Ken Opara, said this at the 2023 Lagos Bankers Night with the theme, ” Exchange Rate Unification: Glocal Implications, Organisation’s and the Country “, on Friday night in Lagos.

According to him, the institute has always advocated transparency and a free market that would allow the interplay of supply and demand.

He said, “The Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria totally supports the Central Bank of Nigeria’s reform as it relates to the unification of the exchange rate and other measures basically taken to ensure the true value of the Naira.

“As a matter of fact, we have been advocating for this and during the week, Dr ‘Biodun Adedipe, leading other scholars, and Mr Laoye Jaiyeola of the Nigeria Economic Summit Group, gathered at the Bankers House to applaud the reform, especially as it relates to the unification of the exchange rate.

“We have seen that the effort that the Central Bank of Nigeria has initiated is already yielding dividend.

“We can see that the exchange rate between the Naira and the dollar has started coming down which means it is a good initiative that is well thought out.”

Opara said that the institute recently organised a half year economic review, where captains of industries also spoke in support of the reform.

He urged Nigerians to take advantage of the good opportunities that the reform had presented, saying wherever there are challenges lie in opportunities.

The CIBN president pledged the institutes continued commitment to making contributions and suggestions relating to what should be done to support and grow the country.

He said, “As it is the concept of the industry; we played this role very well when the industry was facing challenges and we will continue to do that because we believe that the banking industry is very solid, stable and efficient.”

He described the payment system in Nigeria as “the best” all over the world, stressing that it is a system that one could consummate transactions on an online real-time basis.

Opara said this showed that the banking industry and its regulator had done well in stabilising what an effective payment system.

He debunked media reports that its Lagos branch was not in support of the exchange rate unification, describing as “untrue”, but calculated to cause panic.

Chief Consultant of B. Adedipe Associates Ltd. (BAA Consult), Dr ‘Biodun Adedipe, said that the exchange rate unification, which was not new in Nigeria, had gone through the route before with different appellations.

“Let me trade very quickly what I brand as Nigeria’s journey to exchange rate unification.

“Nigeria has gone through this route before but with different appellations like devaluation, correction, alignment, depreciation, all of which are matter of semantics.

“The simple interpretation of this is to remove the premium on the official rate and the parallel market or road side market.

“Of course, this is a typical Bretton Woods recipe; keep premium within five per cent to decentivise round tripping and then find liquidity to sustain it.

“This is the easy way out; but, it never brings enduring solution to the persistent crisis in the external sector of the Nigerian economy.”.

According to him, there are 54 evidence-based research documents to establish that free float is not always the most appropriate for all economics.

Giving historical illustrations, the expert noted that exchange rate movements had a more significant impact on all other prices more than interest rates adjustment.

He said the only period that Nigeria experienced a successful and stable rate convergence in the country was when it had a significant external reserve.

Adedipe said it took the country an average of two to six weeks for the parallel market rates to diverge from the official exchange rate during each episode of premium removal.

He added that speculative attack on the currency occured each time there was no clear sight to a stable and enduring supply.

NAN recalls that President Bola Tinubu, had during his inauguration on May 29, said his administration would seek to bring the different exchange rate regimes being operated across the country’s foreign exchange channels under a single regime.

However, in June, Tinubu through the Special Adviser on Special Duties, Communications, and Strategy, Dele Alake, announced the implementation of a unified exchange rate to save the country from a financial crisis.

He emphasised that his decision to implement a managed float, similar to his approach to fuel subsidy removal, was in the best interest of Nigeria.

Headline

Diphtheria: Children at risk as 7,202 cases are confirmed in Nigeria

Published

17 hours ago

September 30, 2023

Ifunaya Emeka

A staggering 7,202 cases of diphtheria, a highly contagious bacterial infection that can be fatal without treatment, were confirmed in Nigeria last week.

The outbreak has been particularly severe among children under 14, with three-quarters of cases (73.6%) in this age group.

Most cases have been recorded in Kano state, Nigeria’s second most populous state. In the past three months, there have been 453 deaths from diphtheria in Nigeria.

Diphtheria is a vaccine-preventable disease, but low vaccination rates in Nigeria have made the outbreak possible. Only 42% of children under 15 in Nigeria are fully protected from diphtheria.

Diphtheria symptoms begin with a sore throat and fever. In severe cases, the bacteria produce a toxin that can block the airway, causing difficulty breathing and swallowing. The toxin can also spread to other body parts, causing heart kidney problems and nerve damage.

Save the Children is launching a wide-scale health response in the three most impacted states of Kano, Yobe, and Katsina. The organization is deploying expert health and supply chain staff to help overstretched clinics detect and treat diphtheria cases and to support mass vaccination campaigns.

However, Save the Children warns that a mass vaccination campaign will only be successful if the vaccine shortage is urgently addressed.

Severe shortages in Nigeria of the required vaccine and the antitoxin needed to treat the disease mean that the situation could continue to escalate, placing many children at risk of severe illness and death.

Headline

WHO releases $16m to tackle cholera, says Director-General

Published

2 days ago

September 29, 2023

Ifunaya Emeka

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has released 16 million dollars from the WHO Contingency Fund for Emergencies to tackle cholera.

Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General said this during an online news conference.

Ghebreyesus said that the organisation was providing essential supplies, coordinating the on the ground response with partners, supporting countries to detect, prevent and treat cholera, and informing people how to protect themselves.

“To support this work, we have appealed for 160 million dollars, and we have released more than 16 million dollars from the WHO Contingency Fund for Emergencies.

“But the real solution to cholera lies in ensuring everyone has access to safe water and sanitation, which is an internationally recognized human right,” he said.

According to him, in the previous week, WHO published new data showing that cases reported in 2022 were more than double those in 2021.

He said that the preliminary data for 2023 suggested was likely to be even worse.

“So far, 28 countries have reported cases in 2023 compared with 16 during the same period in 2022.

“The countries with the most concerning outbreaks right now are Ethiopia, Haiti, Iraq and Sudan.

“Significant progress has been made in countries in Southern Africa, including Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, but these countries remain at risk as the rainy season approaches,” Ghebreyesus said.

According to him, the worst affected countries and communities are poor, without access to safe drinking water or toilets.

He said that they also face shortages of oral cholera vaccine and other supplies, as well as overstretched health workers, who are dealing with multiple disease outbreaks and other health emergencies.

On COVID-19, Ghebreyesus said that as the northern hemisphere winter approaches, the organisation continued to see concerning trends.

He said that among the relatively few countries that report them, both hospitalisations and ICU admissions have increased in the past 28 days, particularly in the Americas and Europe.

WHO boss said that meanwhile, vaccination levels among the most at-risk groups remained worryingly low.

“Two-thirds of the world’s population has received a complete primary series, but only one-third has received an additional, or “booster” dose.

“COVID-19 may no longer be the acute crisis it was two years ago, but that does not mean we can ignore it,” he said.

According to him, countries invested so much in building their systems to respond to COVID-19.

He urged countries to sustain those systems, to ensure people can be protected, tested and treated for COVID-19 and other infectious threats.

“That means sustaining systems for collaborative surveillance, community protection, safe and scalable care, access to countermeasures and coordination,” he said.