The Senate on Wednesday grilled nominees for membership of the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Monetary Policy Committee over the forex crisis and unending food crisis.
President Bola Tinubu had, last week, forwarded to the Senate for confirmation, the names of nominees for the committee of the CBN.
In giving the request expeditious consideration ahead of the MPC meeting slated for next Monday, February 26, the Senate, through its Committee on Banking, Insurance, and Other Financial Institutions, grilled six out of the nominees with questions on required urgent solutions to forex volatility and food crisis.
The first to be grilled was the Director-General of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Lamido Yuguda, who informed the committee that his nomination into MPC would give the SEC the needed voice in monetary policy.
Yuguda lamented that the value of the Naira as it is today, is not real, having lost its intrinsic value but that the MPC, when inaugurated on Monday, would join other stakeholders to stabilise the national currency.
He said, “The value of any currency is measured by the goods and services that it can buy. The Naira, as it is today, does not possess that value sufficiently which is being critically looked into.”
In his submission, the nominee from Lagos State, Dr. Mustapha Akinkunmi, said the way out now is to target the exchange rate and not inflation as currently being tackled which hasn’t yielded so much result.
He saod, “A more proactive way of addressing the Naira volatility problem at hand is for the CBN to target the exchange rate itself and not inflation.
“The inflation the country is facing now is largely that of food inflation, which is beyond CBN but for the entire country.
“Production and distribution of food commodities across the country would help to reduce the food inflation, while the aggressive target of the exchange rate, would help to stabilise the Naira with the required increase in productivity.”
In a similar submission, the nominee from Imo State, Mrs Aku Odinkemelu, said productivity is the key to arresting the volatility of the Naira and food inflation.
Other nominees grilled at the session by the committee were Prof. Murtala Sagagi, Kano State; Bamidele Amoo, Kwara State; and Aloysius Ordu, who worked with the World Bank and the African Development Bank for 30 years at different times.
In his closing remarks, the committee’s chairman, Senator Tokunbo Abiru (APC, Lagos East), told the nominees that their screening was done ahead of the MPC meeting slated for next Monday by the CBN.
Abiru said what Nigerians expect to come after the meeting are solutions to the rising inflation rate, worsening Naira volatility in the forex market and the general rejuvenation of the economy.
