The report that Nigeria spent a total of $6.23m on foreign healthcare-related services from January to August 22, 2023 and the report that incessant conflict between farmers and herders in the sub-Saharan African region was threatening food security in Nigeria are some of the leading stories in Nigerian newspapers on Tuesday.
The Punch reports that Nigeria spent a total of $6.23m on foreign healthcare-related services from January to August 22, 2023, The PUNCH reports.
This is according to a report obtained from the Central Bank of Nigeria on the amount spent on health-related and social services under the sectoral utilisation for transactions valid for foreign exchange.
According to the report, $0.17m was spent on foreign health-related services in January while $0.14m was spent in February.
The spending increased in March and April to $0.43m and $3.02m respectively.
The CBN report also showed that the country spent $0.79m in May and dropped to $0.42m in June.
The amount spent peaked in July at $0.46m and increased to $0.80m in August.
The PUNCH reports that the amount for the eight months this year is more that the amount spent ($1.47m) for the same period in 2021.
Meanwhile, stakeholders have lamented poor access to forex for the importation and manufacturing of essential medicines.
The Association of Industrial Pharmacists of Nigeria, in a communiqué issued in September, had said some of the challenges faced by pharmaceutical industries include lack of infrastructure, inconsistent and mismanaged government policies, supply chain challenges, weak industrial linkages, weak technology, and engineering base, poor access to forex, lack of petrochemical industries to enable Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients production as well as inadequate incentives.
“NAIP, therefore, calls on the Nigerian government to resolve the lingering crisis in securing forex for the importation and manufacturing of essential medicines as this is becoming one of the greatest threats to the growth of the Pharma Industry in Nigeria,” it said.
The newspaper says that the Federal Government, on Monday, said the incessant conflict between farmers and herders in the sub-Saharan African region was threatening food security in Nigeria.
It said that it was high time crop farmers and herders co-exited peacefully, stressing that the conflict between both groups had dragged on for too long.
The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Mahmood Abubakar, said this in Abuja at the Regions Summit on Human and Climate Security Challenges and Farmer-Herder Conflict Resolution in the Livestock Sector.
The summit was jointly organised by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the United Nations Development Programme and the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations. Its theme was, ‘Promoting Peace and Climate Security in the Crop and Livestock Farming Sectors.’
In his address at the event, Abubakar said, “The summit became necessary as it provides the opportunity for dialogue and discourse on the way forward for achieving peaceful coexistence between crop farmers and livestock herders whose incessant conflict in the region is threatening food and national security in Nigeria.
“Farmer-herder conflict predates the existence of Nigeria as an independent, sovereign nation. It is a conflict that the previous and current generations of farmers and herders, especially rural dwellers have come to know and managed properly using traditional methods.
“However, the dimensions it has taken lately call for deep introspection into unravelling the causes of the heightened, unwarranted attacks by both actors in the conflict and more innovative ways of addressing it.”
The Guardian reports that Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, yesterday, disclosed that four million farmers across different value chains received N800 billion under the Central Bank Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP).
Speaking during the Feed Nigeria Summit in Abuja, Osinbajo said the money was disbursed to smallholder farmers cultivating a variety of commodities on over five million hectares.
The Vice President recalled that the Federal Government, in 2015, activated the ABP scheme under the CBN, geared towards providing farmers with critical funds and input needed to increase local production.
He said challenges confronting Nigeria, in terms of food security, are multi-dimensional and there are no quick fixes, which is why the current administration has prioritised agriculture, as it understands the prominent role food security play in national development.
Osinbajo, who was represented by Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Mohammed Abubakar, disclosed that about 60 million 50kg bags of NPK 20:10:10 fertilisers were produced under the Presidential Fertiliser Initiative.
He added that the National Agricultural Land Development Authority (NALDA) has been directed to establish integrated farm estates across the country, and that the agency is also engaging over 1,000 youths through its National Youth Farmers Scheme.
In his remarks at the event, the Director General, Feed Nigeria Summit Secretariat, Richard-Mark Mbaram, said the programme was organised to galvanise stakeholders in the agricultural sector and chart a way forward for the industry.
He said stakeholders at the summit would come up with measures to address challenges of proper food storage to reduce about 50 per cent post-harvest losses being recorded in Nigeria, among other recommendations.
The newspaper says that four years into the Nigeria-China currency exchange programme, trade and currency sale data suggest the deal is barely scratching the surface of the huge illiquidity hurdle importers must surmount to lift goods from the global manufacturing hub.
As at end of the second quarter, and a year into renewal of the CNY16 billion bilateral currency swap, the total amount of yuan auctioned by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) from inception was CNY7.044 billion.
Indeed, demand for the US dollar has remained stronger, owing to several factors, some of which include multiple conversions involved in international trade due to dollar benchmarking, weak local currency and high preference for the dollar over other currencies.
CBN’s 2022 Financial Market Half-Year Report disclosed that a total of CNY1.263 billion was sold in 13 auctions in H1 2022, compared with CNY1.217 billion sold in 13 auctions in the first half of 2021. Plus other previous auctions, since the programme kicked off, the apex bank had sold CNY7.044 billion as at the end of June.
The performance status report of the programme for the second half is not ready but experts said it might not be remarkably different from historical data.
The total amount sold in advancement of the bilateral deal is less than the value of the deal, which was intensely negotiated for two years before the much-publicised contract signing by heads of the monetary authorities of the two countries on April 27, 2018.
Led by the Governor, Godwin Emefiele, officials of the CBN and the Peoples Bank of China (PBoC), led by their boss, Dr. Yi Gang, were locked in painstaking negotiations for over two years before a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed in Beijing, an event described as a game changer in the search for headway in the FX liquidity crisis.
“The transaction, which is valued at Renminbi (RMB) 16 billion or the equivalent of about $2.5 billion, is aimed at providing adequate local currency liquidity to Nigerian and Chinese industrialists and other businesses, thereby, reducing difficulties encountered in the search for third currencies,” the CBN had said.
GIK/APA