The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) yesterday clarified that out of the N9 trillion interventions it had disbursed in critical sectors of the economy, about N3.7 trillion had so far been repaid by beneficiaries while the about N5 trillion was not yet due for recovery.
The revelation by the central bank came just as various stakeholders in the Nigerian power sector lauded the CBN’s recent N120 billion intervention to close the wide electricity metering gap in the country.
The bank explained that most of its interventions were still under moratorium. It also explained that its Tuesday’s decision to raise the benchmark interest rate by 150 basis points to 15.5 per cent, was not “textbook economics,” as but was informed by reality and the peculiarity of the domestic economy.
The CBN at the 287th meeting of its Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) had raised the Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) otherwise known as interest rate 15.5 per cent from 14 per cent, and also increased banks’ Cash Reserve Requirement (CRR) by 750 basis points to a minimum of 32.5 per cent from 27.5 per cent in order to aggressively tackle rising inflation as well as mop-up excess liquidity from banks’ vault to discourage speculative attacks on the Naira.
