According to the Governor of CBN, Godwin Emefiele, since Pakistan receives about $2billionfrom its citizens in diaspora, Nigeria should not be left out.

He said: “I’m aware from the data available that, for instance, Pakistan, even in the midst of COVID-19 receives $2bn monthly from flows from Pakistani in diaspora.

“If Nigeria is able to receive even if it is just $1billion monthly or moving close to $2billion monthly, I’m so certain you all know what will happen to the exchange rate in Nigeria.”

Emefiele stressed that if the apex bank was able to meet its target of receiving the $2billion monthly from citizens in diaspora, there would be no need of calling the CBN to fund commercial activities.

“So, that is why we are saying that we want to aggressively take on this and see how this will help our economy,” the CBN governor revealed.

As part of its commitment to ensure consistency in increasing exchange rate, the CBN Boss has also authorized all DMBs to close every Naira General Ledgers through which the Naira remittances are being carried out. He also announced that the policy on receipt and administration of diaspora remittances into Nigeria would kick start on December 4, 2020.

He further stressed that “in the course of following up on the implementation of the aforementioned new policies, the CBN observed some pushback by some of the IMTOs, which were bent on undermining the new policies. This was the reason the CBN had to insist on Wednesday, December 2, 2020, that all DMBs must close all Naira General Ledgers through which the Naira remittances were being carried out.

“Following the announcement of these new policy measures, the Central Bank of Nigeria, in an effort to enable smooth implementation, engaged with the commercial banks and the IMTOs to ensure that recipients of remittance inflows are able to receive their funds in the designated foreign currency of their choice.

“As a result of these engagements, which took place with major IMTOs and the DMBs today, Thursday, December 3, 2020, the stakeholders have committed that they would deploy all the necessary tools to ensure that these measures become effective from Friday, December 4, 2020.

“I therefore seize this opportunity to announce to Nigerians both at home and in the diaspora, that the policy of recipients receiving their monies from abroad kicks off on December 4, 2020. All the IT systems of these IMTOs (Western Union, MoneyGram and Ria services) and the DMBs have been properly configured to begin remittance tomorrow, Friday, December 4, 2020.

What you should know

Diaspora remittances are money sent by a person in a foreign land to his or her home country. Due to the huge sums involved, remittances are now seen as an important factor that contributes immensely to the country’s growth and development. Large remittances from citizens in the diaspora will help in price stability and exchange rate stability when the size of the recipient economy is relative to the flow.

The post CBN Advances Step To Tackle Increasing Exchange Rate appeared first on Business News in Nigeria.

As part of its commitment to increasing business opportunities and creating a standard of living for citizens in the country, business leaders including CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, Dangote Group Chairman Aliko Dangote amongst others have made effort to achieve this by empowering four million youths with a sum of N175billion.

Recall that CACOVID was created by the Bankers’ Committee, comprising of banks and major private sector players to address the funding challenges faced by federal and state governments fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to CBN Boss, Godwin Emefiele, who chairs the Banker’s committee said that the rate of unemployment among the youths, was a critical factor behind the #EndSARS protests.

He said: “CACOVID has committed to creating a high impact youth development programme that will provide technical and vocational education to over four million youths over the next five years.

 “Students will be trained on craftwork, plumbing, masonry, carpentry, and other artisanal related skills for which sufficient demand exist in Nigeria.

“Over N150 billion is expected to be deployed towards the set up and implementation of the youth development program, which will be available at select training centers across the country.”

In the same vein, Emefiele identified the provision of employable skills as the ultimate objective of the intervention.

He said: “We believe this initiative can lead to the creation of over four million jobs over the next five years.

“For the out of school graduates that possess certain Entrepreneurial skills, CA-COVID will be working with Bankers Committee to complete the Creative center at National Arts Theater area of Lagos in four select areas namely: ICT and software design/development, fashion, music and movies. This project is expected to cost the Bankers Committee over N40billion.”

While explaining the reasons why security should not be left for the government body to handle alone, he said all private sectors have roles to play to safe guard the country.

His words: “Addressing insecurity could undermine confidence in the economy and derail the efforts of the government in enabling faster recovery of the economy, following the impact of COVID-19. The coalition has, therefore, committed N100 billion to fully rehabilitate all 44 damaged and destroyed police stations nationwide.

“The fund will be used to procure equipment and gadgets for the Nigerian Police Force over the next two years as CACOVID contribution to fully modernise the Nigerian Police.

“Indeed, owners of business premises desire a secure environment to conduct their legitimate businesses. We therefore seize this opportunity to once again, appeal to members of the private sector, who we will be calling on again, to rally round CA-COVID to secure not only our businesses but also our country.

“We also request the private sector to work with to operate under this platform which has been approved by Mr President. “To achieve this, the coalition requested and received N39.64 billion and donations from over 200 Nigerians and corporate organisations, who provided in-kind donations in support of the fight against COVID-19.”

Speaking on the development, Aliko Dangote stressed that the CA-COVID team will create a database for artisans that would benefit from the new training in other to reduce the risk of involving the wrong set of people.

 He said: “We all have repairs and with that data, you can know who to call for repairs. What we are doing is that we are providing them with money to buy tools.

“So, as soon as they get the training which is free, which we are paying for, then they have the guarantee that they get jobs,”

Similarly, Access Bank boss, Herbert Wigwe maintained that security is an essential factor in a country.

His words: “The most important thing has to do with issues of employment. The pandemic and the lockdown created several problems.”

 “All of us have a responsibility to make Nigeria succeed,” the CA-COVID initiative has brought enormous success to the people and helped in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Meanwhile, Esetupe, a key driver of CACOVID, hinted that selected students at the end of the programme will receive loans to support their entrepreneurial pursuits.

The post 4 Million Nigerian Youths To Benefit From CACOVID’s N175b Empowerment programme appeared first on Business News in Nigeria.

As reported on Unmask NG, between October 20 and Friday, October 23, while some stores were looted, government properties and individually-owned buildings, were set ablaze by miscreants who hijacked the nationwide peaceful protest against police brutality in Nigeria.

With many business owners losing their investment and survival means, Emefiele stated that the private sectors who formed the Coalition Against COVID-19 (CACOVID), will draft up a blueprint that will lead to the support of businesses and households affected.

He said: “Our youths have immense potential, energetic and if well-handled can catapult our nation to the forefront of leading nations in the world. “We must, therefore, seek to promote increasing policies that will equip our youths in the right skills that will support innovation, employment and wealth creation.

“It is in this light that key stakeholders in the Nigerian private sector came together under the auspices of CACOVID to brainstorm of the ways to prevent the effect of the recent unrest from eroding confidence in our economy.

“I am pleased to note that the CACOVID alliance will, over the next week, be unveiling a blueprint that will provide details of our planned support that positively affect households and businesses.

“This is in addition to measures that will create millions of jobs for our youths over the next five years. Many parts of the country were affected by the unrest but Lagos remains the worst hit.”

The central bank governor added that the businesses will be at the focal point of CACOVID in the coming weeks.

The post #EndSARS: CBN Discloses Plan To Help Affected Business Owners appeared first on Business News in Nigeria.

It all began when Malcolm Omirhobo, a Lagos-based lawyer, opined that the Arabic words portrayed Nigeria as an Islamic country, which the Nigerian Constitution stipulates against.

According to him, the constitution provides that no religion will be recognized as an official religion, but the naira note carries Islamic print.

Omirhobo said: “Nigeria is a multi-religious state, and Section 10 of the Constitution reads, the government of the Federation or of a state shall not adopt any religion as state religion.”

To this effect, he hauled the CBN to court to put a stop to approving, printing and issuing of the naira notes with the Islamic words.

In the same vein, Omirhobo demanded that the court order CBN to use one of Nigeria’s three main indigenous languages; Hausa, Yoruba or Igbo.

CBN’s Defense

While defending the decision to Justice Mohammed Liman, CBN explained why the change would be too expensive.  He said that stopping the circulation, changing the naira notes or printing new naira notes would come at an extra cost to the Nigerian government.

CBN said, “The change of currency or editing the naira note would cost the country a “colossal sum of money.”

The central bank further ruled out all claims that the Arabic statement on the naira notes portray Nigeria as an Islamic country.

The Apex body maintained that the Ajami inscription has been a part of Nigeria since the colonial era, and do not imply Arabic is an official language in Nigeria.

CBN continued: “The inscriptions on the country’s currencies do not and at no time have they threatened the secular statehood of the nation, nor have they violated the Constitution of Nigeria, as every design and inscription was finalized with the approval of the relevant government bodies.

 “The naira notes retained the inscriptions with Ajami since 1973 when the name of the Nigerian currency was changed to naira from pounds.

“The Ajami was inscribed on the country’s currency by the colonialists to aid those without Western education in certain parts of the country, who, back then, constituted a larger part of the populace.

“The Ajami is not a symbol or mark of Islam but an inscription to aid the populace uneducated in Western education in ease of trade.”

The post Why CBN Opposed The Removal Of Arabic Words From Naira Notes appeared first on Business News in Nigeria.

Revealing why Nigerians are reluctant to make new purchases of houses and cars, the apex bank, in its Consumer Expectations Survey for third quarter 2020, disclosed that Nigerians believe that the next one year is not the ideal period to acquire cars and houses – which are known as big-ticket (luxury).

The survey covered a sample size of 2,070 households drawn from 207 Enumeration Areas (EAs) across the country, with a response rate of 99.8 percent.

This revelation came as the respondents also stated that they believe unemployment will continue to rise in Nigeria.

“Majority of consumers believed that the current quarter was not the ideal time to purchase big-ticket items like consumer durables, motor vehicles and houses & lot more. Most consumers do not intend to buy big-ticket items in the next 12 months,” CBN stated.

 Click This Link To See Full CBN Survey.

The post CBN: Nigerians Won’t Be Able To Afford New Houses And Cars appeared first on Business News in Nigeria.

Recall that about nine months ago, precisely October 2019, the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government handed over the National Theater, located in the Iganmu area of Lagos, to the CBN and Bankers’ Committee, in order to renovate and construct it into a world-class convention centre.

In a surprise turn of events, on Sunday, July 12, 2020, this same government repeated the same action, in a similar way.

Having been handed over for renovation, a 40-acre Creative Industry Park is expected to be developed around the National Theatre. Unmask NG understands that the development was meant to boost the growth of the creative sector in diverse areas like entertainment, movie, music, fashion, and ICT.

As stated when first handed over, Governor Godwin Emefiele of the CBN, said the National Arts Theatre would be transformed into a high revenue-generating hub, adding that under the CBN Creative Industry Financing Initiative, a hub would be built around the edifice to accommodate talented youths so that they can develop their God-given gifts.

The CBN boss also expressed conviction that the project would eventually lead to the buildup of a more resilient economy.

Budget for the renovation

Although, the money budgeted for the renovation of the National Arts Theatre is yet-to-be made public. However, going by a disclosure made by Emefiele during the 11th Bankers Committee Retreat in Ogere, Ogun State, it is most likely that about N25 billion, have been spent twice to revive the moribund National Arts Theatre.

If not, why the renovation of the National Arts Theatre has been handed over twice to the CBN and Bankers’ Committee for renovation, in different ceremonies, is a question that begs for answers.

The post Corruption Alert? FG Hands Over National Arts Theatre To CBN For Second Time In A Year appeared first on Business News in Nigeria.