Market News

By Tope Omogbolagun

The Senate on Wednesday screened the nominated members of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Central Bank of Nigeria, questioning them on the lingering foreign exchange and food crises.

President Bola Tinubu had last week forwarded to the Senate for confirmation the names of nominees to the MPC of the CBN.

The Senate through its Committee on Banking, Insurance, and Other Financial Institutions, drilled six out of the nominees with questions on required urgent solutions to forex volatility and food crisis.

First to face the fire 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.

 He lamented that the current value of the naira was not real, having lost its intrinsic value, adding that the MPC, when inaugurated on Monday, would join other stakeholders, to get it stabilised.

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.”

According to the nominee from Lagos State, Dr Mustapha Akinkunmi, the way out of the current forex crisis is to target the exchange rate and not inflation as currently being tackled, which hasn’t yielded so much result.

 “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 a required increase in productivity,” he noted.

 In a similar submission, the nominee from Imo State, Mrs Aku Odinkemelu, said productivity was the key to arresting the volatility of naira and food inflation.

Other nominees drilled at the session by the committee were Professor Murtala Sagagi from Kano State, Bamidele Amoo from Kwara State and Aloysius Ordu, who worked with the World Bank and  Africa Development Bank for 30 years at different times.

The Chairman of the committee, Senator Tokunbo Abiru (APC Lagos East), told the nominees that their screening was done ahead of the MPC meeting slated for Monday next week by CBN.

 He said what Nigerians expect to come after the meeting was solutions to the rising inflation rate, worsening naira volatility in the forex market and rejuvenation of the economy generally.