- MPC Meeting’ll Hold After Senate Confirmation of Members – Emefiele
The Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, on Thursday said the Monetary Policy Committee meeting would hold seven to 10 days after the confirmation of the members of the committee by the Senate.
Emefiele said this shortly after the inspection of the Sunti Sugar Factory owned by Flour Mills of Nigeria and partly funded by the CBN.
President Muhammadu Buhari had sent the names of two deputy governor-nominees and new members of the MPC to the Senate following the expiration of the tenure of some of the former members.
The nominees for the CBN deputy governors are Mrs. Aishah Ahmad and Mr. Edward Adamu.
The nominated members of the MPC are Prof. Adeola Adenikinju, Dr. Aliyu Sanusi, Dr. Robert Asogwa and Dr. Asheikh Maidugu.
The Senate had refused to screen the nominees following a resolution that no appointee of the executive would be cleared until the President removed Ibrahim Magu as the acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.
The decision made the apex bank to postpone the January meeting of the MPC.
While the second meeting of the committee, which is supposed to hold on March 19 and 20 approaches, the Chairman, Senate Committee on Banking, Insurance and other Financial Institutions, Senator Rafiu Ibrahim, had pleaded with his colleagues to clear the MPC members and the two CBN deputy governors.
He had hinged his argument on the fact that the delay in clearing the members was affecting the economy in the way of foreign direct investment inflow.
His prayer was granted by the Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, who directed that the process of screening the members should commence next week.
Speaking on the development, Emefiele said he was delighted that the Senate had decided to screen the nominees earlier sent to them by the President.
He stated, “We will have a few days’ delay. The MPC was supposed to hold on the 19th and 20th of March. What I suspect is that we will be holding our committee of governor’s meeting and we will decide.
“And I believe we will just have between seven and 10 days’ delay, and the MPC will hold.”