Despite being the backbone of the economy, the manufacturing sector is often at the receiving end of many government policies.
So long as what you require is denominated in a foreign currency and you do not produce competitively to be able to export, you will always have this hiccup in terms of your balance of trade. It extended to two months, three months, four months, five months, six months, a year, a year and a half, in some cases, almost two years. And then at the end of the day, you are being told that you are not going to have the dollar because the process of processing that transaction is faulty.
So what should be focused on is whether there was a transaction, whether it was done legitimately or fulfilled all the requirements asked for. And if we have done all that, I do not think there should be any delay in letting it go — tAnd like I said, we are engaging and we will continue to engage with the CBN till the matter is resolved. Going to court is never anybody’s best choice and I do not think that it will resort to that.
So, I think there has to be a timeframe that may happen, but that is one side. The other side of it is that it is not only FX that has led to the increase in those prices, so for you to be able to notice any significant reduction, you may need to check to see how other cost factors have performed. Just like the price increase is occasioned by a number of factors, the reduction would also be occasioned by some other factors.
It has been a period of trying to manage the fallout of this initial pronouncement by the government. Incidentally, it came at the very beginning of the administration. So far, I have seen that the CBN has responded through a lot of measures and it has in many cases worked. There are those, particularly the forwards, that needed to be fine-tuned and that needed to be resolved in order for us to fully restore confidence in the process because it is now a matter of process.