Campaign aims to curb abuse of currencies

THE NIGERIAN government would embark on a sensitisation campaign to curb the abuse of its currencies, an official said.

Abubakar Danchadi, a director with the National Orientation Agency (NOA) told reporters that the organisation was partnering with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to carry out the campaign.

He said the nation’s currencies and is headed for its first fullyear recession since 1991, according to the International Monetary Fund.

An economy in recession with a devaluation means something is wrong.

While President Muhammadu Buhari’s government announced a record budget were grossly abused in a myriad of obnoxious ways.

“These include mutilating them and spraying them during ceremonies, thereby marching on them,” the director added.

“These also include putting them in parts of the body where they are not supposed to be kept,” he said.

Danchadi told reporters that the currencies should be

for this year to stimulate the economy, it was struggling to finance infrastructure projects, and pay civil servants’ salaries.

“An economy in recession and with a devaluation means something is wrong,” said Babajide Solanke, an analyst at FSDH Merchant Bank.

“The downgrade is justified”, and would make Nigeria’s foreign and domestic bonds less attractive. Investors would be concerned about the risk posed by falling oil prices on the government’s ability to pay back the debt, he said.

Nigeria has seen government revenue squeezed by patriotically respected by both Nigerians and non-Nigerians alike.

“The nation’s currencies are part of our national symbols,” he added. He said the joint campaign by NOA and the apex bank was therefore to urgently reverse the ugly trend.

The apex bank had warned that abusers of the nation’s currency notes risk six months

the fall in global oil prices to roughly half their levels from 2014. In addition, attacks claimed by militants in the oil-producing Niger River delta region pushed monthly crude exports to the lowest in 27 years in May.

Positive growth

S&P expected Nigeria’s economy to contract 1 percent this year before returning to growth. Real gross domestic product (GDP) was likely to expand 2 percent next year and 4 percent the following year, it said in the statement. imprisonment or a fine of 50000 (R2 250).

The bank described as criminal the abuse of the country’s currency, stressing that offenders would be arrested and prosecuted.

Spraying of the naira, hawking and mutilating it are punishable under section 21, subsection 1-5 of the CBN Act of 2007. – Xinhua

“We believe that since passing the fiscal budget, government spending together with liberalisation of the interbank foreign exchange market, may boost the economy and spur positive GDP growth next year,” S&P said. Oil output might improve in the fourth quarter as government negotiated with militants and vandalised pipelines were repaired, it said.

Moody’s Investors Service and Fitch Ratings each downgraded Nigeria to four levels below investment grade in the first half of the year. – Bloomberg