Taiwo Oyedele, the Chair of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms has remarked that the Federal Government is preparing to launch new foreign exchange rules — including a crackdown on unlawful currency trading by year’s end.
According to Oyedele, it is hoped that the move will result in the Naira closing over 45% gap with the unauthenticated rate and reaching a “just price” by year-end.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Oyedele had remarked that the government plans to clear a backlog of dollar demand appraised at about $6.7 billion, to strengthen the Naira forward market, and set transparent rules for the functioning of the official market.
Oyedele, a former Fiscal Policy Partner and Africa Tax Leader at PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC), had expressed his hope that by December, and possibly in a couple of weeks, Nigerians would begin to see the results, such that before the end of the calendar year, Naira will gain its true value and not the one that is being seen presently in the parallel market.”
Oyedele had also said that the government will be seeing an “equitable price” for the dollar at “N650 to N750”.
Finally, he concluded that the divergence between the official and parallel market rates meant that one was sucking liquidity and supply from the official market to the parallel market because everyone desired the premium.
