Rewane said this on Saturday, while speaking on Arise News
TV programme, adding that there will be more pains this year on all the
reforms.
“The bad news is that there is pain and they will be more
pain in the short run but the good news is that there will be gains in the
first quarter of 2024,” he said.
“I used to think that you will get that sooner, but you will
need to have your supplementary budget and recycle money into the system.”
Nigerians have been faced with challenging times since the
inauguration of the president, on May 29, when he announced the removal of
petrol subsidy, a declaration that resulted in a hike in the pump price of
petrol.
The latest of the fuel subsidy removal was on Tuesday, when
the petrol price surged to N617 per litre in the federal capital territory
(FCT) and environs, whilst it is sold for around N568 a litre in Lagos.
George Akume, secretary-general to the government of the
federation (SGF), on Saturday, asked Nigerians to be patient while the
government implements solutions to “normalise” the price of petrol.
The SGF described the petrol subsidy regime as regressive,
adding that the annual payments were not sustainable and that Tinubu “had to
act”.
Akume also said Tinubu’s actions of unifying the exchange
rate and rejigging the country’s security architecture were proof of his
commitment to securing the country’s future.
Commenting on the exchange rate, Rewane said, “What system
is being used to keep your exchange rate from being misaligned fundamentally, I
think that’s the key issue.
“The exchange rate is misaligned because there are certain
things that are being done that affect it. For example, you are holding some
variables constants while allowing some variables to change.”
“In reality, no variable should be constant. Any economist
who says a variable is in constant is practising partial equilibrium analysis
and it doesn’t work,” the financial analyst added.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), on June 14, announced the unification of all segments of
Nigeria’s FX market, and the floating of the local currency.
The policy was geared towards collapsing all FX windows into
the investors and exporters (I&E) window.