Sen. Ali Ndume, the Senate Chief Whip, has accused the Federal Government of benefiting from the continued slide of the country’s currency against the US dollar.
Speaking in an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today, Ndume posited that contrary to popular belief, the Federal Government is actually cashing out on the depreciation of the naira against the dollar, and gaining more revenue to fund its 2024 ‘dollarised’ budget.
According to him, the increasing value of the dollar meant that the government would get more naira to spend on its expenditure, which is denominated in Naira.
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The lawmaker said: “Don’t forget that this budget is a ‘dollarised’ budget, especially in terms of the income. And when it comes to the terms of the expenditure, it’s in Naira.
“So, if we are getting our money in dollars and the value of the dollar is up, that means we will have more naira in terms of what we spend, because we are not spending in dollars; we are spending in naira while we are getting our revenue in dollars.
“Truly, the value of naira against the dollar has fallen but we are selling our major product that we generate income in dollars. And that means any dollar we get now will also be valued at the current dollar-to-naira exchange rate.
“So if you do the analysis critically, it may mean if you balance it up, we may have more money to fund our budget. So technically, Nigeria is even benefiting from the dollar-to-naira hike.”