The governor of the Central Bank Nigeria (CBN), Mr Oluyemi Cardaso has identified overseas education and medical tourism as two of the major factors putting pressure on the naira.
Cardoso who disclosed this on Tuesday when he appeared before the house of representatives, said over $40 billion was spent between 2010 and 2020 to access education and healthcare abroad.
He said while $28.65 billion was spent on education, medical expenses gulped $11.01 billion during the period in review.
“It is crucial to highlight that between 2010 and 2020, foreign education expenses amounted to a substantial US$28.65 billion, as per the CBNs’ publicly available balance of payments statistics.
“Similarly, medical treatment abroad has incurred around US$11.01 billion in costs during the same period. Consequently, over the past decade, foreign exchange demand for education and healthcare has totalled nearly US$40 billion.
“Notably, this amount surpasses the total current foreign exchange reserves of the CBN. Mitigating a significant portion of this demand could have resulted in a considerably stronger naira today,” he said.
He said the number of Nigerian students studying abroad was projected to exceed 100,000 by 2022, adding that the amount spent on education and healthcare outside Nigeria is more than the foreign reserve of the country at present.
However, he was not opposed to medical tourism and overseas education but was only explaining why the Nigerian currency was under pressure.
Furthermore, the CBN governor revealed that the government spent $58.7 billion on personal travel allowances within the same period and disbursed an additional $9.01 billion to Nigerians for personal foreign travel between January and September 2019.
On the removal of 43 items from the forex ban, Cardoso said it is only the minister of finance who can offer the explanation since the matter is fiscal.
“CBN does not have a responsibility to determine who imports or not, for that reason we want to ensure that we abide by our remit.
“The issue is not for us to determine. That is a fiscal issue; it has nothing to do with us. We are going back to do what we are supposed to be doing,” he said.
With Premium Times report
