Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Professor Charles Soludo yesterday advocated the amendment of the Constitution to the extent that revenues accruing from oil will be �appropriately� managed.
He made this call as the CBN disclosed that the nation�s gross external reserves hit a record high of $43 billion as at the end of November. It was $41.2 billion as at the end of October.
Soludo who yesterday in Abuja declared open quarterly Seminar the theme �Effective Management of External Reserves,� frowned at the current situation in which all monies made from oil are paid into an account and shared out every month.
He however said before the amendment is made, there should be a guideline for managing the oil revenue.
According to him, �the constitution need to be emended for us to appropriately manage earnings from oil.
�Currently, the constitution says all oil monies should be placed in the account and shared out. This is not right and needs to be changed�.
He added: �What we should be doing before the constitutional amendment, we should have a guideline for managing the earnings from oil, may be set a benchmark for it. Building a political consensus for this to happen without a constitutional amendment is a challenge.�
Soludo said a lot of people found it difficult to know the rationale for accumulating reserves when there were things that needed application of such monies like poverty alleviation, unemployment and noted that there has been debates on what to do with the excess crude proceeds which currently stood at $10 billion. Some states, he said, were clamouring for the sharing of the proceeds.
�Many Nigerians are questioning the rationale for accumulating high levels of reserves in the midst of poverty, unemployment and inadequate infrastructure.
�There is also some concern over the possible impact the dwindling fortunes of the US dollar could have on Nigeria�s external reserves that are predominantly denominated in that currency�.
He added: �additionally, many of the state governments in Nigeria are opposed to the serialization of the portion of the serves accruing to the federating units from the excess crude receipts and see no reasons why these funds will be converted into Naira and distributed to the three tiers of government immediately�.
Dec32006