A former Director-General of Abuja Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Chijioke Ekechukwu, has said that the 2025 budget projection on the exchange rate of N1,500 to $1 meant that the Tinubu administration is telling Nigerians there is nothing it can do to bring the exchange rate lower.
President Tinubu Tuesday presented a national budget of N47.96 trillion for 2025 to the joint session of lawmakers in the National Assembly.
He said the budget, which was put together based on economic realities, would trigger prosperity of Nigerians in 2025 if implemented to the letter, adding that it would restore and consolidate on key policies of government
In Tinubu’s appropriation bill, the exchange rate is projected at N1500 to $1 and Ekechukwu sees this as worrisome.
“You know that exchange rate is to tell Nigerians that ‘there is nothing we plan to do that will bring the exchange rate lower,’ because Nigerians are still thinking that probably that rate can come lower than N1500, maybe up to 1000, so there is a problem,” he said on Channels Television.
“There’s a problem, you know, with that projection, because you are dumping our hopes of a reduction in the exchange rate.
“All you’re telling us is, yes, the exchange rate is meant to remain here. And in fact, if you have made such a projection, that means you even expected it to still remain high when you’re talking about the production capacity of our oil.
“Yeah, for oil pricing, we already see that it is higher than the market rate at this time.
“But for the production output projection of oil, we are seeing over two million barrels. Two million barrels per day is going to be a far cry.
“Because if you consider where we are today, we haven’t seen that which is going to change or increase the production of oil to take it to 2 million barrels a day.
“But we already said it’s good to be ambitious. Maybe there are things they know that we don’t know, they have not told us. But if it is just what we have seen on ground, that is very ambitious.
“In the next two years or three years, yes, that can be achieved, but in this current year of 2025 it is, I think it’s a little ambitious.
“The exchange rate is worrisome. Inflation rate is another very ambitious one. Now you cannot achieve that level of exchange rate of 15%.
“15% with the kind of inflation rate, with the kind of petroleum product pricing we are having. So you are going to first of all ask, ‘what are those things that are the drivers of the inflation rate,’ the two of them still remain high.
“So what else is going to pull it down? There is a third one, insecurity. It’s still there. So what is that thing that is going to bring it down to 15% that we cannot see?
“And that’s why I said that one is almost not possible to achieve,” he declared.
2025 budget: Tinubu has told Nigerians $1 can’t go below N1500 – Ekechukwu