The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) failed to bring down rates, but tightened measures because banks:

• have refused to lend to the agriculture and manufacturing sectors, despite the injection of N1trillion into the economy;
• are lending to traders who pump the cash into foreign exchange trading, thereby increasing the unusual pressure on the naira, which exchanged for N325 and N425 to the dollar in the official and parrallel markets yesterday; and
• attempts to inject more cash without corresponding increase in industrial capacity will worsen inflation.

The MPC of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) shocked pundits by retaining all the monetary policy instruments at their current levels.

Addressing journalists at the end of the MPC meeting in Abuja, CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele said “the Committee assessed the relevant risks and concluded that the economy continues to face elevated risks on both price and output fronts”.

Emefiele said: “Given its primary mandate and considering the limitations of its instruments with respect to output and conscious of the need to allow this and other measures, like the foreign exchange market reforms, to work through fully, the Committee decided to retain the MPR at 14.00 per cent; the  CRR at 22.5 per cent; the Liquidity Ratio at 30.00 per cent; and the Asymmetric Window at +200 and -500 basis points around the MPR.”

Defending the MPC’s decision, Emefiele said it decided to tighten measures because banks were not lending money to agriculture and manufacturing, but instead were funneling credit to traders who used the money to demand for foreign exchange.

Emefiele said: “There was a time when the MPC took a decision not only to reduce the monetary rate but also the cash reserve. These were intended to lower rates and encourage spending by the private sector. After we did that, because we did not see the impact on the private sector, we further reduced the CRR from 30.5% to 25%; N1 trillion was injected into the economy through the banks to loan this money but rather than loan this money those credits went to traders who used them to demand for foreign exchange, thereby putting pressure on the foreign exchange market.”

The CBN governor went on: “Thereafter, we reduced CRR to its current 22.5%, that is about N300billion to N500 billion but we said we were not going to allow the banks to have the cash until they send proposals to the CBN for primary agric projects, real manufacturing projects and other types of projects that will support industrial capacity and manufacturing output. I must confess that the proposals that we received were mainly for the purpose of refinancing the liquidity of the banks and thought that that was not what we wanted. That is the reason we have been circumspect about releasing some of those liquidity.”

Very few banks, he said, “have submitted proposals for agric and new manufacturing projects that we will be considering in due course.”

Emefiele explained that “if we lower interest rate, what that will do is make it possible for the fiscal authorities to borrow at a lower rate. If they borrow at a lower rate to stimulate the spending, yes it will stimulate the demand for goods. When you stimulate spending by proving cash or money without taking action to boost industrial capacity, what will happen is that there will be too much money chasing too few goods, which will worsen the current inflationary situation we are in right now.”

The option the apex bank wants to adopt “is that while the fiscal is going ahead to spend, what we want to do is to say, ‘maintain the rates where they are’, since we want to maintain a fairly tight situation and since the tightening, we have seen inflow of FX of above $1 billion between July and now.

“These were used to procure raw materials. This will lead to price of goods moderating and growth of industrial and manufacturing capacity. We want to match the demand so that it does not lead to further inflationary pressure,” Emefiele said.

On the efforts of both fiscal and monetary authorities to synchronise their actions, Emefiele said: “We are working together to achieve what we want to achieve so that we don’t hurt the economy.”

The CBN governor added that “the Committee acknowledged the weak macroeconomic performance and the challenges confronting the economy, but noted that the MPC had consistently called attention to the implications of the absence of robust fiscal policy to complement monetary policy in the past. The Committee also recognised that monetary policy had been substantially burdened since 2009 and had been stretched.”