Amalgamation Day in Lagos, 1914

Amalgamation Day in Lagos, 1914

12 May, 2009

Still on the Naira exchange rate

This is a follow-up to this blog post.

This report in NEXT says the Naira has fallen to =N=184.00 to $1.00 in the (so-called) parrallel market. The official rate today according to the financial website I check is =N=147.25 to $1.00

First of all, it is long past time for the two rates to converge .... but that is another issue to talk about another day.

What is interesting about the NEXT report is they cite dealers who believe the Central Bank of Nigeria is concerned that defending the Naira's value is leading to a quick depletion of our external reserves. These dealers think the Central Bank is lowering the amount of dollars it injects into the markets ... which they believe is the source of the drop in the Naira value on the parrallel markets (supply is down, demand is constant, price goes up).

Much more interesting .... this article repeats something reported earlier in Business Day; apparently the status of our reserves is now classified information. The CBN website used to have public information on the reserves, but that was taken off after February, and the CBN has issued no public report on the state of the reserves since then.

This is a strange "democracy" where we the people have no influence (not even indirecly via credible elections) on the expenditure of money that constitutionally belongs to us.

No comments:

Post a Comment