- Intervention Funds Meant to Boost Economic Growth –Emefiele
The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, says the regulator’s intervention funds initiatives are meant to stabilise the economy and preserve ailing sectors from collapsing.
He said the interventions funds programmes were also important just as its statutory roles of stabilising the macro-economic environment, protecting the country’s legal tender and achieving price stability.
The governor spoke at the CBN Special Day at the 2017 Lagos International Trade Fair in Lagos on Thursday.
Emefiele, who was represented by the Acting Director, Corporate Communications, CBN, Mr. Isaac Okoroafor, said should the apex bank failed to intervene in certain sectors, the economy would be in chaos with attendant job losses.
The theme of this year’s trade fair is, “Promoting industrialisation for economic recovery and sustainable growth.”
He said, “Many people would be wondering why the Central Bank of Nigeria is engaging in all these – it should be doing monetary policy, exchange rate policy and supervising the banks. But we have realised that exchange rate policy cannot work if the rest of the economy is in trouble.”
“Whether you talk about interest rate or cost of doing business, you have to talk about power. So, we saw power as a critical national resource that must be available for our economy to grow. So, we made available money to be able to address certain difficulties between the generation companies, generation and transmission companies. We have been working with government to see that problem is resolved.
“So far, we have impacted the economy to the generation of 1,180magawatt of electricity.”
Emefiele highlighted the bank’s focal areas to include agriculture, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises and infrastructure, adding that the various sectoral interventions had impacted the Nigerian economy and created millions of jobs as at August this year.
Earlier, the President, Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Mrs. Nike Akande, lauded the governor for managing the nation through the recent turbulent recessionary period.
She commended the government’s approval of the Secured Transaction in Movable Assets Acts 2017, the Collateral Registry Act and the Credit Reporting Act 2017, saying they were capable of boosting access to finance by the MSMEs in Nigeria.
“We however call on the CBN to pay more attention on excess bank charges, liquidity management of the forex market, increased monitoring of banks for financial sector stability and efficient service delivery to bank customers,” she added.