The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has revealed that diaspora inflow under the ‘Naira 4 Dollar Scheme’ stood at $2.4 billion the first eight months of 2022.
The director of trade and exchange department of the bank, Dr. Ozoemena Nnaji, disclosed this at the 33rd Seminar for Finance Correspondents and Business Editors held under the theme “Policy options for economic diversification: Thinking outside the crude oil box,” organised by the CBN.
She noted that the inflow has been strong, pointing out that in the entire 2021, remittances recorded through the scheme were a total of $2.9 billion whereas eight months into 2022, Nigeria had already recorded $2.4 billion.
She disclosed this at the weekend, at the 33rd Seminar for Finance Correspondents and Business Editors held under the theme “Policy Options for Economic Diversification: Thinking outside the crude oil box,” organised by the CBN.
Also, she revealed that the CBN was considering improving the scheme to have a more streamlined approach, which would enhance diaspora remittances in collaborations with other government parastatals.
According to her, “In 2021, we were able to record $2.9 billion of cash inflows, so far this year, we have recorded $2.4 billion. So, in half of the year, we have gotten almost what we got in the year 2021.
“We have a component of remittances which include workers’ compensation, anyone that worked in Nigeria, even if you are a Nigerian but are paid in dollars because you work for an embassy or an international organisation, it is counted as a remittance.
“So, there are so many components of remittances. But the component of inflows that comes into this country so far, we are at $2.4 billion.”
Also speaking, a professor of economics and capital market, Uche Uwaleke called on the CBN to tinker with the scheme to increase its benefits and improve remittances into Nigeria by modeling it after the Pakistan model.
“On the ‘Naira4Dollar’ policy, we have seen some successes. We have been told that since its introduction we have seen some accretion to the reserves on account of that.
“However, the central bank should consider the Pakistani model where they introduced something similar but in 2020, moved a step further to introduce a loyalty reward scheme that encourages remittances to benefit from participating companies.
“It should be improved upon to increase remittances. In Pakistan for example, it has increased remittances from $11 billion to $24 billion. So, we can improve if we tinker with the current Naira4Dollar scheme,” he said.
