Anxiety has continued to becloud the economy and particularly the banking sector as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has again postponed the Monetary policy Committee meeting scheduled to begin Monday, November 2023.
This is the second time in three months the CBN monetary policy Committee, where critical decisions on monetary policy issues, after appraisal of government’s fiscal policy measures, are taking.
According to the MPC schedule published on the bank’s website, the last time the bank had such a meeting was on 25 July, almost four months ago.
The implication is that the newly appointed CBN governor, Olayemi Cardoso, is yet to hold the critical monetary rates-setting meeting since he assumed office in September.
“MPC is not holding,” Isa Abdulmumin, the spokesperson for the bank, told Bloomberg in a text message on Monday, without further explanation as to why the meeting is not holding.
At the last MPC meeting in July, the central bank pegged the benchmark lending rate at 18.75 per cent.
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Analysts say investors have been looking forward to the MPC meeting for signals on how the lender intends to address the nation’s inflationary trend.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) inflation figures published last week, Nigeria’s inflation increased to an 18-year high of 27.33 per cent in October.
Meanwhile, analysts also forecast that the CBN would further hike its interest rate by 100 basis points this week.
This, they said, will send a strong message that the bank is not relenting in its efforts to address inflation.