Fashola: Naira Swap Policy Should Be Reversed by Central Bank since it’s not benefitting Nigerians

Fashola made the request to change the policy due to its detrimental effects on Nigerians when he appeared on Channels Television on Monday.

Babatunde Fashola, the Minister of Works and Housing, has urged the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to reevaluate its naira swap policy if it is no longer serving its intended purposes.

Fashola made the request to change the policy due to its detrimental effects on Nigerians when he appeared on Channels Television on Monday.

After initially setting January 31 as the deadline for the exchange of old naira notes, the CBN has set February 10 as the new date.

The new N200, N500, and N1,000 notes are currently difficult to come by for many Nigerians, which causes a shortage and related misery in the nation.

The minister lamented the difficulties brought on by the apex bank’s instruction and argued that it was crucial for public authorities to reevaluate their strategies when they received the opposite result from what they had intended.

I understand such difficulties, but some of them are the outcome of the policy, and it is the duty of public employees, especially those in charge of those policies, to reflect on their actions and ask, “Did we mean to cause this suffering?

And if the policy is not functioning, you might need to make adjustments and consider if you gave this enough thought. As a public official, I have had occasion in the past and present to change course when I realized that my policies were having unexpected consequences.

The key issue is that such policies are not yet providing the results and are causing a lot of inconvenience for [people], he continued. “So, I have no duty on those two sectors and thus I cannot talk to the details of the information that are available to the policymakers,” he said.