Oil price crash: SEC boss calls for emergency measures

Acting Director-General of the Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, Ms. Mary Uduk, yesterday, has called for emergency measures to insulate the Nigerian economy against expected shocks from the declining crude oil prices and increasing spread of coronavirus.

Addressing newsmen in Abuja, on its forthcoming International conference on Nigeria’s Commodities Market, Uduk stated that with the current state of things, Nigeria’s 2020 budget is already seriously threatened.

She however noted that the Commission would be monitoring developments in the global market to control the impact on the Nigerian capital market.

She also commended efforts spearheaded by the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, noting that the apex bank needed to be supported by stakeholders across all sectors of the Nigerian economy in order to achieve meaningful results.

Uduk stated: “The government has to sit down and calibrate and look at what are the steps that are to be taken in order to avoid a recession, if we are not already even there.   And you know that will affect our ability to earn foreign exchange which is predicated on doing a lot of things. We have to service our debts and all of that.

“It is not just have to be one sector it has to be concerted effort, all of us needs to sit down and say what can we do and right now as we speak it is been done in CBN.”

Uduk further stated that the forthcoming  International conference on Nigeria’s commodities market was another platform for critical stakeholders to brainstorm on issues bothering on diversification of the Nigerian economy and the roles agriculture would play in insulating the Nigerian economy from the shocks in the global economy.