The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed has said that stoppage of foreign exchange to Bureaux de Change (BDCs) will increase the productive capacity of businesses.
Mrs Ahmed said when she hosted participants of the Executive Intelligence Management Course 14 of the National Institute for Security Studies, at the ministry’s headquarters weekend in Abuja.
According to the minister, the policy will not only guarantee stability of the financial market, it will also increase access to forex for businesses.
“What has been done is to stop selling foreign exchange through the NAFEX window to BDCs, With their licenses in place, they are free to source FX and do their business under the supervision of the CBN.
“I will give you an example, onna weekly basis, maybe the CBN has $1million to provide to the market, BDCs get $700,000 of that while the industries and formal businesses just get $300,000. With this policy, what it means is that $1million will now be serving the formal window where formal businesses would be able to access foreign exchange. So, it is enhancing the capacity of these businesses to bring imputs for their production processes,” she asserted.
She further said that through the Road Infrastructure Tax Credit Scheme (RITCS), a total of 33 road projects covering 1,564.95 km in 19 States across the country have have been approved for construction, repairs,and maintenance.
Mrs Ahmed added that presently, construction work is ongoing on four road projects which is being handled by corporate investors such as Dangote, BUA, MTN, and Access Bank.
The RITCS which is a fallout of Executive Order 7 of 2019 is designed to leverage private sector capital, efficiency and expertise to construct, repair and maintain critical road infrastructure in key economic corridors and industrial clusters in Nigeria. The scheme relieves government of the burden of funding significant outlays for road projects through the annual budget. RITCS utilises tax expenditures, by way of tax credits, to finance the construction of critical road and bridge infrastructure through an innovative PPP mechanism that incentivises private sector participation.
