Thursday, September 10, 2020 / 10:08 PM / By
Oluseyi Awojulugbe of TheCable / Header Image Credit: Hi Quality Turf
President Muhammadu Buhari has directed the Central
Bank of Nigeria (CBN) not to provide forex for the importation of food items or
fertilizer.
The president was speaking on Thursday at a meeting of
the National Food Security Council at the State House in Abuja.
This is the second time the president will make such a
statement, the first being in August 2019.
Buhari advised private businesses bent on food
importation to source their foreign exchange independently, saying "use your
money to compete with our farmers, instead of using foreign reserves to bring
in compromised food items to divest the efforts of our farmers".
"We have a lot of able-bodied young people willing to
work and agriculture is the answer. We have a lot to do to support our
farmers," a statement by Garba Shehu, a presidential spokesman, quoted Buhari
to have said.
"From only three operating in the country, we have 33
fertilizer blending plants now working. We will not pay a kobo of our foreign
reserves to import fertilizer. We will empower local producers."
The president also directed that blenders of
fertilizer should deliver products directly to state governments so as to skip
the cartel of transporters undermining the efforts to successfully deliver the
products to users at reasonable costs.
Policies by the CBN and Muhammadu Buhari-led
administration have been targeted at reducing importation and ramping up local
production capacity.
At present, the CBN has a list of items that are
ineligible for forex.
Credit:
The post Again,
Buhari Asks CBN to Halt Forex for Fertiliser, Food Items first appeared in TheCable on
September 10, 2020.
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