TheCable

Zainab Ahmed, the minister of finance, budget and national planning, says the country is deciding the next course of action on the adoption of Eco by some West African countries.

The minister announced this in a statement signed by Yunusa Tanko Abdullahi, her special adviser media and communication.

“Nigeria has received the news of the change of name of the UEMOA Currency, the CFA (Communaute Financiere d’Afrique) to Eco supposedly as the ECOWAS single currency,” the statement read.

“Nigeria is studying the situation and would respond in due course.”

In July, member countries had agreed that ‘Eco’, the proposed single currency would be launched in January 2020.

They also agreed that a flexible currency regime would be adopted.

On December 21, eight countries namely Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo, announced that they would be changing from the CFA Franc to Eco through their union, West African Economic and Monetary Union.

The countries, which are all French colonies except Guinea-Bissau, severed financial links to France with the decision.

Ghana has also indicated an interest in switching its currency to Eco, however, it opposed pegging the currency against the euro.

“We, in Ghana, are determined to do whatever we can to enable us (to) join the member states of UEMOA, soon, in the use of the eco, as, we believe, it will help remove trade and monetary barriers,” Ghanaian president, Nana Akufo-Addo, said in a statement.

However, the statement indicated that Ghana opposed plans to keep the eco pegged to the euro, urging regional authorities to work quickly toward “adopting a flexible exchange rate regime”.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect that the currency change by UEMOA countries is not the same as the proposed ECOWAS single currency.