The report that President Bola Tinubu will sign an executive order to bring down the cost of drugs in Nigeria, which has been on the rise is one of the leading stories in Nigerian newspapers on Thursday.
The Punch reports that President Bola Tinubu will sign an executive order to bring down the cost of drugs in Nigeria, which has been on the rise.
The Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof. Muhammed Pate, disclosed this on Wednesday at the Ministerial Press Briefing Series with the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mr Mohammed Idris, in Abuja.
Pate said that the executive order, which Tinubu is expected to sign will “significantly reduce the cost of drugs and pharmaceutical products in the country”.
“The rising cost of pharmaceuticals is a pressing concern, and we are taking decisive action to address this issue.
“An executive order will soon be issued to curb escalating drug prices in the short term, while our mid- to long-term goal involves the domestication of imported drugs within the next three years, in collaboration with the Ministry of Trade,” the minister stated.
He added that aside from the executive order, the Federal Government was moving to fortify the pharmaceutical infrastructure across the country, through the construction of pharmaceutical-grade warehouses in 21 states.
The newspaper says that the naira appreciated marginally against the United States dollar to N1,609 on Wednesday at the official market from N1,615.94 recorded the previous day.
This indicates an increase of N6 or 0.37 per cent.
The slight improvement came on the heels of series of foreign exchange guidelines issued by the Central Bank of Nigeria in recent weeks.
Meanwhile, the Monetary Policy Committee on Tuesday raised the Monetary Policy Rate, also known as benchmark interest rate, by 400 basis points to 22.75 percent on Tuesday from 18.75 per cent in July 2023.
It also adjusted the asymmetric corridor around the MPR to +100/-700 from +100/-300 basis points, raised the Cash Reserve Ratio from 32.5 per cent to 45.0 per cent, and retained the Liquidity Ratio at 30 per cent.
However, the expected impact of the rate hike has not yet reflected on the official foreign exchange as the naira depreciated by 2.04 percent after the dollar was quoted at N1,615.94 on Tuesday compared to N1,582.94 quoted on Monday at the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market, data from the FMDQ securities exchange indicated.
Government officials have consistently maintained that the naira is currently undervalued.
The Vanguard newspaper reports that the United States government has said it invested over $600 million in health assistance in Nigeria in 2023 as part of the Nigeria-US partnership on Health Assistance.
The health assistance include provision of about 83 million insecticide-treated bed net, 22 million malaria preventive treatments in pregnancy, 164 million fast acting malaria medicines, and Insecticide to spray 121,000 homes.
It added that over 102 million rapid diagnostic tests for malaria were administered while an estimated 2 million people who live with HIV in Nigeria out of about 39 million people live with HIV globally are receiving health assistance.
A fact-sheet of the partnership seen by Vanguard, said, “U.S. partnerships on health in Nigeria have saved millions of lives, strengthened health systems, and better prepared Nigeria and the region for current and future health security threats.
It reiterated that the US is is proud to work in partnership with Nigeria to advance these shared public health goals.
It reads, “The facts about U.S. government partnership with Nigeria for health now and in the future includes Preventing Malaria.
“Malaria threatens more than half the world’s population and claims the life of a child every minute, and the United States, together with our global partners, has helped save more than 11.7 million lives and prevented 2 billion malaria infections globally.
The newspaper says that investors in the Nigerian stock market lost about N1.5 trillion of their investment in the stock market following the massive adjustments in the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN’s Monetary Policy Rate, MPR, at the Monetary Policy Committee, MPC, meeting yesterday.
Recall that the meeting raised the MPR by unprecedented 400 basis points to an equally unprecedented MPR height of 22.75 percent from 18.75 percent.
The NGX market capitalisation, which represents the total value of investment on the Nigerian Exchange Limited, NGX, dropped to N54.317 trillion at the close of trading on Wednesday from N55.810 trillion recorded on Monday.
On Tuesday, when the Governor of the CBN, Yemi Cardoso, announced the new MPR, the stock market went down with investors’ losing N773 billion and on Wednesday it dropped further by N720 billion.
In the same vein, another major stock market gauge, NGX All Share Index, ASI, declined for the two consecutive days by 2.7 percent to close at 99,266.02 points from 101,995.53 points it closed on Monday.
Trading analysis showed that the NGX ASI declined on Tuesday and Wednesday by 1.4 % and 1.3% respectively.
Market activities showed trade turnover settled lower relative to the previous session, with the value of transactions down by 4.8 percent. A total of 396.23million shares valued at N5.83billion were exchanged in 10,549 deals.
GIK/APA
Nigeria: Press focuses on plans by govt to crash drug prices, others
