Tighten Loopholes In New Forex Policy On School Fees, Don Tells CBN

By Nse Anthony-Uko,
SOKOTO, (Sundiata Post) – The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) should tighten the loopholes identified in its new Forex policy on school fees to prevent abuses.
A financial economist and Head of Banking and Finance Department, Nasarawa State University, Dr Uche Uwaleke, said that the policy, which has made foreign exchange available to the public for the purpose of school fees, medical bills and personal travel allowance (PTA), at a cheaper rate is prone to abuse.
Speaking at the ongoing 23rd Seminar for Finance Correspondents and Business Editors, organised by the CBN with the theme ‘Monetary Policy in a period of Economic Uncertainty’ in Sokoto State, Uwaleke noted that in addition to returns requirement from the banks, CBN need to collaborate with the Ministry of Education to get a list of acceptable foreign universities which should benefit from this Policy.
Also, he advocated that like Venezuela, Nigeria, should come up with a list of courses that the policy should support to ensure that only courses that are relevant to economic development should be funded at that concessionary rate.
Recall that the CBN is currently implementing a policy whereby foreign exchange needed for school fees, medicals and Personal Travel Allowance (PTA) can be accessed at N375 per dollar.
In his presentation titled ‘Enhancing Domestic Production as a Panacea for Growth and Forex Conservation’ Dr Uwaleke
recommended that the current demand side management involving forex access restrictions on the 41 items which can be produced locally should be sustained.
According to him, the CBN should identity specific import goods which can be produced locally and provide incentives for small and medium scale enterprises to begin and /or increase production of such goods.
He stressed that the also need to boost local refining of petroleum products for self-sufficiency such as reducing petroleum product imports by 60 per cent by 2018, thus save foreign exchange and become a net export by 2020.
He also called for prioritising food security and achieve self sufficiency in rice by 2018 and wheat by 2019, having failed on the tomato paste self sufficiency which was targeted for year end 2016.