Nothing adverse will happen if MPC fails to meet next week- CBN

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Thursday dismissed fears in some quarters that failure in not holding of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting next week may have adverse effect on the nation’s economy.

Deputy Director and Head of the MPC Secretariat in the apex bank, Mrs. Omolara Duke stated this in Lagos during a chat with newsmen, adding that all indices show that the nation’s economy is doing well and that “noting will spoil if the MPC meeting fails to hold next week.

She confirmed that the CBN is ready for the MPC meeting once the impediments are sorted out, particularly the delay in the confirmation of the nominees to its board and MPC by the Senate.

“For the MPC meeting not holding next week, nothing adverse will happen to our economy. All indices show that the economy is doing well and there is nothing to be worried about should the MPC meeting not hold next week,” she said.

According to her, the CBN Act 2007 makes provision for the MPC to meet about six times or a minimum of 4 times in a year, noting that “even if we miss the January meeting, not because of any fault of ours but the lack of forum for the meeting, no thanks to the delay in confirmation of the nominees to the MPC, we are optimistic that the five other meetings of the committee for the year will still hold as we expect that the Senate would soon confirm the nominees sent it by Mr. President,”.

While noting that the CBN is the institution that produces the report that the MPC considers during its meeting, Mrs. Duke assured that the report ready and all hands are on deck to ensure that the economy keeps moving forward without hitch.

“When we analyse the January meetings of the MPC for the past years, most of them were a review of what had happened in the past year and advice for the New Year. So most MPC meetings in January are not usually that period where changes are made. Most often, they retain the rates of the last meeting,” she added.

Also speaking, the Acting Director, Corporate Communications Department of CBN, Mr. Isaac Okoroafor, affirmed the preparedness of the CBN to present the necessary report to the MPC should it hold anytime, adding however that the past meetings of the MPC in January most often retained the parameters of the last meeting.

“In the last five years, the CBN was not known to have changed its rates in January. Since September of 2016, we have more or less maintained our parameters. We did that because we have seen that the inflation is trending down and this will push interest rates further down. So nothing adverse will happen if the MPC does not hold as expected next week”.

He assured that the CBN will continue to do its best to ensure that the economy continues on upward swing.

“At the moment, the economy is doing well and we are optimistic that with what we have done and continue to do, the trend will remain,” he added.

Sam Nzeh