… assures Nigerians of controlling inflation
Harboursandport.com: Lagos - The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele on Wednesday said that global academic economics theories that work in other parts of the world may not work in Nigeria.
Emefiele disclosed this while speaking at the Vanguard Economic Discourse titled: "Taming inflation & stimulating growth: The place of fiscal and monetary policies", in Lagos, also assured Nigerians that the apex bank will do all within its power to control the rate of inflation in the country.
The CBN governor who was represented by the Lagos Branch Controller, Godfrey Bariboloka Koyor, said Nigerians are created specially, calling on all to join hands with CBN to ensure that the economy is brought back to sound footing.
He said, "All the economic policies you are reading in the books, it may not work in Nigeria. We are a unique people. We are created specially.
"Yes, I am saying this because you are my witnesses and you can see the effort the CBN is making. "
"From the CBN perspective, we don't believe in blame games. We see a lot of reactions come in trying to blame one person or the other or one organization or the other.
"We do not believe in the blame game. We believe that the economy of Nigeria is in our hands and so all of us will have to work together.
"The monetary authorities, the fiscal authorities, and all of us as Nigerians, until we begin to take steps ourselves, having failed in our own country and in our own economy, we won't be able to go too far.
"We are keeping our eyes on the indices as they are going and as our responsibilities to bring in the necessary controls and the regulations that we believe will be able to address all the issues.
"Inflation like we know at the moment is a little bit on the outside but we have taken policies and stance to moderate it.
"So be it the election, we are already taking actions that will help with the money supply and we believe that with the cooperation of Nigerians, we were able to regulate the money supply like we know that the inflation depends on the quantum of money pursuing the goods and services and the dollars and the rest of it all.
"So we have noted that there are a lot of funds that are outside the banking system which if it is made available it will give banks the ability to be able to lend to the needy sector and so that we will have a balance in the circulation and the distribution of the currency and that is the essence of the redesigning of the currency and to be able to address some of the issues that have to do with counterfeits that have been predominant because some of us we are having the nairas in our pocket and we won't be very sure that they are genuine ones until they are brought back and we subject them to the necessary test and the control.
"So people will continue to spend money be it for the election, be it for the census and other activities that the government will have but that is why were are there from the Central Bank side to look at the money supply, the money distribution and we are also looking at the indices, the data as it affects other business activities and the inflation eventually.
"So I assure you that all Nigerians should have rest of minds. We are doing our best to regulate and make sure that the inflation is tamed to the best of our ability."
Emefiele announced that the bank has plans to achieve the building of a technology village with N500 billion budget while highlighting the various achievement of the bank which included the revival of the National Theatre in Lagos and the Race to N200 billion (RT200) billion scheme for exporters.
"Apart from the monetary policy which is the traditional role of the CBN, the CBN has gone far more than that and you can agree with me in the recent past, the Governor of the CBN, Mr. Godwin Emefiele and his team have intervened so much more into the economy.
"The National Theatre has been there for a long time and not much more attention was given to it but through the intervention of the Central Bank, we brought back the glory of the National Theatre here in Lagos.
"The role is open to those who are in that sector. You can go down and use the facility to develop your talent.
"Many of the creative people, are earning dollars across the world. Either from their phones, from their music, from their performances, and all of that. A lot of people are earning their survival and all of that and are surviving and making ends meet from all of those things.
"At the end of December this year, we have come up with about N500 billion in projects. We are looking at the technology village and we are trying to get a space on about 40 hectares of land.
"We can have it somewhere around Lagos where we can have a technology village and so we will be able to get the people that are into technology because we know that a lot of these things are to be driven by technology.
"Technology is a major income in most of the advanced countries of the world. It is not the manual things we are talking about we are looking at it here.
"The RT200 is another initiative that was taken to address the issue of forex for those who are in Nigeria who can import and export foreign exchange. We have done the first and second summits of the RT200 so they can repatriate their forex and get a certain percentage and plough it back.
" Not to talk about most of the decisions and the actions that were taken by the CBN into agriculture.
"All of those were taken to address the issue of cost.
"So we are not concentrating on the monetary, we are also looking at the cost aspect. And we all know, the cost is not just from one side, the scarcity of petroleum, all of those things, we are taking steps to address it from our side based on the tools available to the CBN."
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