 You're welcome back. It's still the breakfast on plus TV Africa right now is our first hot topic and this is Reps or House of Representatives Nigeria's House of Representatives is said to investigate use of foreign currency as legal tender in Nigeria and in fact Particularly, it's the dollar that's being used as legal tender in Nigeria So our guest this morning is Mr. Joe Femi DaGunro a public policy analyst. Good morning and welcome to our show this morning Good morning. Thank you Okay, so there's this trend that has caught the attention of the House of Reps people are using foreign currency as legal tender in Nigeria particularly the dollar would like your comment on the move of the House of Reps and The entire trend of using dollar to transact in Nigeria Basically, I think this is not new Yes back it has been a trend especially in the Realist whereby people are you know, given their apartments out in dollar as currency Preferred, you know, but we have to understand it Naira is the legal tender in Nigeria and it remains so unless it has been changed so as long as remain the legal tender and the only issuers of The issuer of Naira is still the central bank of Nigeria. No other currency be a dollar pounds euro Should be regarded as a legal tender But I think the trend is on now more because people are trying to you know, find a safer place for their currency and Because of the turbulence in the foreign exchange market So you can understand that but that is not that's not legal. So there's no place for that. However Any hospitality industry you expect that To still be part of the system because if you are coming in and you go into an hotel You will see that the most cases the hotels would display the rates the central bank rates Accordingly and then if your customer I guess comes in with dollar euro or whatever and it's going to be a change And Given the Naira value according to the central bank and the the customers or the guests to the P in that in that case It's something that is accepted But just ordinarily going around town and say no we accept a dollar here. I don't think that should be encouraged Well, what you're saying is they get to the like in the hospitality industry They get to the hotel and they change it to the Naira value, but from From the experience it's Some of these people don't even need to change it They just tell you what the dollar value is and then you are expected to pay very very common in the hospitality hospitality industry as you have mentioned and I wonder why that is and This senator's or this house of reps members these politicians that are trying to probe it now have been Transacting in those dollars for a very long time And I'm wondering why it just came up nowadays now instead of having come up a long time before now Why do you think it is now that they're just waking up to say they need to investigate and do something about it? Yeah, everything that comes up She'll make our country a better place Should be encouraged. It doesn't matter if we have been doing something that is not really good in the past But once we can wake up and decide to do something good, we should encourage it So it's not too late to do anything good and you see that we are coming up The country is coming up with a lot of reforms the central bank is being investigated a lot of all these things would come up And if the rep should wake up to his responsibility And begin to do it. I think that would be a good thing. You see what is going on in the passport Office now that the minister says look you can get your passports within 14 days And they can even be delivered and these are the things these are the new things that we expect to happen And if this government is promoting such things, I think we encourage it So it's never too late to do something good And if this is what the house of rep they will probe it is not just to investigate the thing is this Most times I used to hear him this we want to investigate this want to prove this and at the end of the day Nobody knows how it ends and that is what is really discouraging and at the same time people are invited to come they are interviewed and And the end you don't even know what has happened, but you keep reading and hearing we're inviting this person We're inviting that person and after the interview after the noise and all this stuff and nothing comes out of it And that is the discouraging the Considia know part of the roofing but starting to investigate the use of foreign currency is a good thing if It comes out well that we can discourage that and make Naira, you know, it's a make Naira great again It's part of the whole thing But I think the government will be looking into every avenue to make Naira is stronger Maybe tender and they will be able to see how can we make our foreign exchange market stable? So these are all ways all avenues that we have to Look into to have a stable market by way of emphasis for peoples of emphasis rather How how much damage is this? Doing to our economy the damage that using foreign currency is doing to our economy just Highlighted for us to so see if the point is this if you go to a lot of countries a couple of countries where Tourism is really their main focus Take for instance, Seychelles, Mauritius, you know, Morgies Dubai and some other countries like that in Africa and other places you will begin to see that It is not new to them, you know, they encourage it You know, they encourage it. But the point is this how do we monitor it? The only fear here is and the thing that I think has not been properly, you know, controlled is if they pay the hoteliers If they pay them in dollar or any foreign currency, who controls that? Where do they take it to? Did they take it to the open market or the so-called black market to sell or it's being regulated and all that So it's a way of generating Foreign direct investment as well But then if it is not properly monitored if it's not properly controlled then there's a program and that is one of the things We have to look into but we can Like I said in that industry you cannot Burn it and you cannot restrict it You can even encourage it but make sure that it is well monitored. It is well managed It is something you encourage in the tourism industry Yeah, well, but now they're talking about schools and Truly, there are a lot of schools that charge you in dollars instead of Naira here in Nigeria not even teshara institutions secondary schools primary institutions Especially the private ones not especially the private ones because government school will not charge you in dollars But these things are happening Schools airlines hotels and so many other places will charge you in dollars and we're just wondering How will that turn out to to help us? You know in our in our economy That's where our government has to you know really Sit up to make sure it works even if you want to pay your bills in In places like you know, maybe you want to do Google search online payments and some of these Foreign companies they just say you have to pay in dollar. You can do that elsewhere You can be in Europe and tell them to pay dollar to pay the euro, you know And if you are UK you can pay pounds that it and then why should you be in Nigeria? and you want to buy a service online and The service provider is compelling you to pay in dollar. It should not be encouraged Yes, and if private institutions are and trying to save their money that way Then it shouldn't be a courage at all. It shouldn't be a courage. Yes It's something people want to really save their money dollar, but then you are not helping the country, but for the airline You see because most of them they have this backlog and they have not been able to take their money out of the country And that is not good for them And that is where most of them might be saying, okay, you pay us in dollar or you don't fly But then if we say look if you try to have people in dollar, you don't come in then it's going to cost a lot of Ripples here and there and you know, these things are diplomatic issues. So we have to find a way to have enough Dollar to pay Bills and for these airlines said to be able to repatriate their money We want investors to come into this country and they should be able to repatriate their money But as of now we are having this issue You know having enough to satisfy the customers. I mean the people the populace But then it's going to take some time. But let's see. I said this new central bank of no it must be working out something and The idea that he even postponed the MPC meeting Maybe it's just to see what and what structures we have to put in place We don't have enough for a result as we've had so we have to begin to generate it as well. We have to do something Creatively genuinely to be able to raise for a result so that we can have enough to pay our bills So this is why we are going through this as a country and this is where people will try to find a way to really Make their own gains as well So the bankers have to be involved as well the banks have to be involved in a lot of things a lot of issues We have to be put in place. It's not just to say, okay, you don't spend it but let's put a proper money proper monetary policy in place a proper fiscal policy policy in place and Then let's do the right thing. It's gonna be tough for a while But I think we need to compare our people to make Naira a legal tender and to accept Naira in Nigeria You can't do it elsewhere. No country will accept that, you know, so it's the right thing to do at the moment Well, I don't know how that will work because right now according to the World Bank Naira and the Angolan, Kwanzaa are the worst performing currencies in Africa The Naira and which means even Zimbabwe dollar is better than us. They see the day Whatever other currency in Africa, they're all better than us except the Kwanzaa of Angola And it's insulting to compare Nigeria, Nigeria's currency to that of Angola And you were talking something about you were saying something about about monitoring it properly so that we can get The benefits of this happening But how do you monitor it because now that according to the the the World Bank and the The decision of the Central Bank of Nigeria to remove trading restrictions on the official market weakened the Naira So now Naira is trading at 1,025 Naira and if you get this dollar from whatever means that you are going to get a Lot of these people if not all of them will not take it to the bank directly Because at the bank there's still some form of official exchange rate Which is lower than the black market. So a lot of these people will take it to the black market and make more money So how do you think that this is going to work? How how will this monitoring be done? What do you suggest be done to be done to make sure that this Monitoring that you advocated can be carried out seamlessly It's just unfortunate that you mentioned the Angola Kwanzaa, you know and Angola and Nigeria, you know, they are all Sporting countries and this shouldn't be happening if we look at it from that point I think we've mismanaged you know currency or resources in the past and This government I believe is trying to put a lot of things in place that we don't continue To have this kind of deficit and that's why I think the government is trying to have this Expansionary policy as well if all these policies are put in place on the walkway like, you know, I'm making sure that the The poverty level is reduced to making sure that you know Small and medium entrepreneurship is promoted and the businessmen and women can really have enough Bring down the inflation That is really rising, you know all these things are just all over the world, you know, but it's just because It's taking some time now and it's going to cost some time to get all these things, right? The World Bank said that what is really hurting the Naira that has brought it to its knees like this is a policy of this present government, you know Removing trading restrictions on the official market. That's what led to this The way the Naira is suffering right now and is being being being compared to Angola and Kwanzaa It's I don't know. So if this government brought a policy that has made the Naira go down this bad Do you think it's time enough for them to soft pedal back pedal and Restrategize or they should just continue and you have confidence that in the long run. We are going to enjoy You have a lot of economics coming up with ideas and the policies can always be viewed But is he for me personally I keep saying IMF World Bank. Yes, they have competent people Doing their research is but at the same time that the same things that You know, sometimes it's scary But at the same time is for us to just take note of it and walk if we have our own Policies that is hot in us that we know that is hot in us We should be able to review it and if we can review it at the right time and make it work for us For all take off the subsidy take off deep take off that and the government comes in and say, okay We're doing it. Maybe it should be done in a different form in a different way at different time Yes, all this thing can be debated all this thing can be argued But then moving forward is what the government is trying to do. I'm not a government spokesperson But I think from what I'm observing is the fact that you know You know at the point in time even our legal tender We don't even have the Naira to spend if you remember That even our Naira we don't even have it and we're supposed to even have Naira So these are the things that is so scary and to ordinary people We cannot just sit down and believe everything that because we are compared with Angola or any other country Yes, they have their problems. We have our problems. I'm going to solve it You know America has this problem as well. Every other country has their own problems They are facing natural even monetary, you know, and so they are reviewing their policies And the most important thing we have to look into is not just like I said, not just investigating or reviewing policies It's making sure policies work accordingly. The humanitarian minister came up and said we are going to do this We are going to the market to take you know data and all that Let's get all the things ready before we announce policies before we do it so that when we are doing it We do it right NNPC will come and say we should we should be exporting there all in so-so and so time Let's get to that place because the moment we keep, you know, announcing all these things and people cannot see It makes them feel bad. It's, you know Deprives them of their, you know, normal plans that look this will work, you know So if we continue to change policy now and then it will not help as well So I believe the aglow means that the The experts in that area are looking into it and they'll be working out to make it work Nobody wants this country to be to be messed around or to be tucked Down that way, but then we have no option right now. We know we don't need Anybody to tell us what we're going through. We are the people going through it So we know we see it we feel it So we're going to work on that and we will make sure that it happens It may not be so fast, but it's the monitoring has always been the problem of most of our policies Even our roads that are bad our infrastructures who monitors them who controls them There are expiry dates on some of these things who controls them So if we don't get that right, I think we can do a lot of reviews and Investigations as long as there's no proper monitoring as long as there's money laundering going on here and there as long as the bank has Some of them will not you know control some of these things and that would be this problem It's an ongoing thing that's been there for a long time. If you go to Ghana for a while I mean sometimes in Ghana has always had a kind of policy There the cities, you know, it's fixed, you know, go to Dubai. You see it's fixed, you know The idea is fixed. So if we can do certain things you can go to 10,000 Places, it is the same price you will find You know in in in in in all these places because they know what it is and the people respect their law It's not as if people will not break the law. Yes, but there are consequences for that So if we have all these things fixed and we have all these things being monitored You do need to be afraid of that bringing your dollar into Nigeria We get the dollar and we make you something But for indirect investment as well, okay This final question, you know, you will have to be very Brief about it, but it will sound like a digression, but it's related because our economy hangs on it Some so many people have said the stakeholders have said that the government is still paying fuel subsidy And then PCL has come out to say they are not paying fuel subsidy. There are so many things that are not Not connecting they are not they are not showing that There is truth in both quarters. We don't know what the real picture is But do you think as some people have thought that Maybe the federal government made a mistake by talking about this fuel subsidy removal and actually removing it the way they removed it and They should In all humility return to it just like Kenya did I think Kenya also did they remove fuel subsidy and Discovered that it was it was it was a mistake because they had more problems than the solutions that they thought they would have Do you also think the government maybe for a time should return to the subsidy officially without Us having to hear like rumors that the subsidy is still there and some evidence is coming from here and there Do you think they should go back to fuel subsidy at least for a time and have a timeline to face it out? gradually You said it you see I do I would want to comment on rumors and speculations because that would not be good At this time and for people like us to really to really say things like that. You see the government has A policy and you the government comes out and say this is what we're doing Uh, and nmpcs and all that and not the government If the people in the Industry are saying something different. Yes, actually you want to tend to believe those people who are saying because they are part of the industry And they know it. They know exactly what's going on, but we will not be saying things like them because we still want to Uh, believe that the government is doing the right thing even government face. They're not doing the right thing Like you said the president came up with an idea and said this isn't it's hot in and we have to do a lot of problems out there Okay, we can review and I think the president but I mean, you know really somebody that Maybe we've seen all this and we're hearing all this since we'll be hearing these advices as well And uh, that's why I'm saying let's see what's gonna happen in the next few weeks And see how this thing is going to want to optimize the pressure on that. We have to look at it because we have uh christmas coming And uh, it's a long holiday people who have to be doing their shopping There's a lot of people who want to be traveling here and there and traveling out at comedy So if that's what I said, no, we don't have a few weeks. We should be able to see uh Couple of news coming out. That's my own thinking that in this news you'll be able to you know Guide us. I'm leaving to tell us what and what the government is planning and What the government will be doing with the monetary and fiscal policy These are really key tools for the government to use and if the oil subsidy is still something that they're paying I think it is not right because it has Uh being in it's not in the budget to pay. I mean if if we look at that unless something is wrong somewhere That some people say here's they're paying subsidy and how would they be paying the subsidy? Who are they paying the subsidy to? So when are they paying the subsidy? So this they have to come clear with that And I think that's one of the things that the senators and the reps should have to look into and call the peony right people and Ask them to investigate it as well. That's why they are there. Okay All right, uh, thank you so much. Mr. Joe Femi Dagon Ro for coming on the show this morning And they have to look at it and come up with their own Suggestions and investigations Okay, thank you so much for your time this morning on the show. Mr. Dagon Ro It's my pleasure. I appreciate. Yeah, we've been talking with Mr. Joe Femi Dagon Ro public policy analysts on the show We're looking at uh at the use of foreign currency as legal tender in Nigeria Why we need to condemn it and if it must be used how we can Uh leverage that and Okay for the good of our economy and our well-being as well We'll take a short break and return with our second hot topic and try to see where we can get that