Hope Rises for Nigeria as Putin Agrees to Free Up Ukrainian Grain Exports – Newstrends
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Hope Rises for Nigeria as Putin Agrees to Free Up Ukrainian Grain Exports

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Russian President Vladimir Putin

The food inflation as well as scarcity of farm additives in Nigeria occasioned by the war between Russia and Ukraine, may be tempered soon, with President Vladimir Putin assuring African leaders of his readiness to allow their export to the continent.

The federal government had recently lamented that the war was causing another wave of global economic distortion reflecting in the cost of food and fertiliser in the country.
Aside grains export from Ukraine, Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed, said that as a fertiliser-producing country, it has been tough getting potash, a key ingredient in the production of the agricultural commodity, which had led to skyrocketing prices.

“For Nigeria as a producer of fertiliser, one of the major inputs for fertiliser production, potash, is also affected. Now it is scarce and that means that the input is very expensive and we are seeing that reflecting in the cost of fertiliser,” she said.

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But in April, Nigeria bought emergency supplies of potash after the country was unable to import the key fertiliser ingredient from Ukraine-Russia due to the impact of the invasion.

However, during a meeting with the Chairperson of the African Union (AU), Senegal’s President Macky Sall, Putin told the representative of African leaders that he was ready to enable the export of Ukrainian grain to ease a global food crisis that is hitting Africa especially hard.

“President Putin has expressed to us his willingness to facilitate the export of Ukrainian cereals,” Sall wrote on Twitter after meeting Putin in his role as chairman of the AU.
Russia was also ready to ensure the export of its own wheat and fertiliser, Sall said, according to Reuters, after the talks in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi.

Sall did not say if Putin had attached any conditions to his offer, but Russia had previously said it is ready to allow vessels carrying food to leave Ukraine in return for the lifting of some Western sanctions against it, a proposal that Ukraine has described as “blackmail”.

Africa is heavily dependent on grain supplies from Russia and Ukraine that have been badly disrupted by the war.
“I have come to see you, to ask you to be aware that our countries, even far from the theatre (of war), are the victims of this economic crisis,” Sall told Putin earlier.

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Naira gains further against dollar

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Naira gains further against dollar

The Naira rose further in the official market on Tuesday, trading at N1,382.95 to the dollar.

According to data from the FMDQ’s official trading portal, the Naira rose by N25.09, or 1.78 percent, from the previous day’s rate of N1,408 versus the dollar.

On Tuesday, total turnover was $245.58 million, up from $222.15 million on Monday.

Meanwhile, at the Investor’s and Exporters (I&E) window, the Naira traded between N1,486 and N1,300 against the dollar.

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The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had, earlier on Tuesday at its 294th Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), raised Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) by 200 basis points from 22.75 per cent to 24.75 per cent.

CBN governor Yemi Cardoso said that was meant to tackle the nation’s rising inflation.

Naira gains further against dollar

(NAN)

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CBN jacks up interest rate amid soaring inflation

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CBN jacks up interest rate amid soaring inflation

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Tuesday raised the interest rate from 22.75 per cent to 24.75 per cent amid soaring inflation.

Governor of the central bank, Olayemi Cardoso, made this known after the two-day Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting held on Monday and Tuesday.

The country’s latest annual inflation rate jumped to 31.70 per cent from 29.90 per cent for last month, fueled by a continuous rise in food prices.

Cardoso disclosed that the MPC voted to adjust the asymmetric corridor around the MPR at +100 to -300 basis points.

He said the committee voted to retain the Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) at 45 per cent for commercial banks and adjust the CRR of merchant banks from 10 per cent to 14 per cent.

The committee also voted to retain the liquidity at 30 per cent.

He said, “Members noted the continued rise in headline inflation driven largely by food prices, because of supply shortages, and high cost of Logistics and Distribution.

“The committee, therefore, was of the view that addressing food insecurity is key to containing current inflationary pressures.”

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Law enforcement agencies investigating $2.4bn unverified forex claims – CBN

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Law enforcement agencies investigating $2.4bn unverified forex claims – CBN

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) says law enforcement agencies are investigating $2.4 billion unverified foreign exchange claims.
Governor of the CBN Olayemi Cardoso disclosed this while speaking during a press conference on Tuesday after the 294th meeting of the monetary policy committee (MPC) in Abuja.
On February 5, the CBN governor said he inherited a $7 billion FX backlog when he became the head of the apex bank in September 2023.
However, it was discovered that $2.4 billion of the sum was invalid following an inquiry into the transactions.
Subsequently, the CBN said all outstanding FX obligations had successfully been settled.
Providing clarification on the unverified claims, the CBN governor highlighted various irregularities, such as the disbursement of large sums of FX for requests never submitted and allocations made without the necessary naira backing.
He said there was an absence of legal validity and adequate documentation in these transactions.
Cardoso also stressed the gravity of these irregularities, labelling numerous transactions under investigation as “clearly unlawful”.
“We brought in Deloitte management consultants who took time and this really did take months.
“This is not something that happened overnight and a lot of this work was going on and people didn’t know but they took months painstakingly to go through all the documents, all the documents and to ensure that you know, they would have a report, which we could rely on,” he said.
“In the course of that, of course, we determined that a number of these transactions did not qualify.
In some cases, you had some allocations that were made in millions of dollars, which were never requested for.
“We also had somewhere they had no naira and they were also allocated, you know, huge sums of foreign exchange and the list goes on. It was for that reason that we refused to validate those particular transactions.
“We refused to validate them because apart from the fact that documentation was not satisfactory, in many cases, they were outright illegal.
‘And the law enforcement agencies, of course, are now looking into those transactions that are, as far as we’re concerned, not valid to be paid.”

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