The New Experience Newspapers Online News Indepth, Analysis and More
Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Godwin Emefiele has said the apex bank is committed to full intervention in the health sector following outbreak of Coronavirus in the country.
He stated this yesterday at a consultative round table with stakeholders in Abuja, with the theme, “Going For Growth 2.0”
Founder of Zenith Bank, Jim Ovia, President of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, Minister of Transportation Rotimi Amechi attended the frorum.
Others are the Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, Managing Director, Nigeria Sovereign Wealth Authority, Uche Orji and Chief Executive Officer, African Finance Corporation, Samaila Ahmed, among others.
Emefiele explained that the CBN had decided to support the government by helping to develop specialist hospitals across the country, stressing that the interventions would be in the areas of diagnosis and surgery.
He pointed out that this would reduce the constant foreign trips to oversea countries being embarked upon by Nigerians in search of medical attention.
“Giving the impact of coronavirus, I heard some countries are trying to ban export of some pharmaceutical products and we must look inward at this time.
The CBN is also working to support the pharmacy and pharmacology industry” he said.
Responding to why Nigerians do not patronise made in Nigeria sanitisers, Emefiele urged people, owners of patent outlets and pharmacies to buy made in Nigeria products.
He said the apex bank would soon add sanitizers to the lists of products on foreign exchange restriction, inisting that the country should take advantage of the development to ensure diversification of the economy driven by the present administration.
He decried a situation where the country’s 80 per cent Foreign Exchange earning is derived from oil even as it constituted 60 per cent of government’s revenue, which he said, would make the country’s economy to feel the impact of coronavirus.
Emefiele added that relying on crude oil since in 1970’s had become a huge challenge for the country and as such something should be done to change the trend, saying findings from the round table discussion would be presented to President Muhammadu Buhari at the end of the event.
