Emefiele Confirms Postponement of MPC Meeting

•  Says committee of CBN govs to decide date
•  Commends Senate for concession on confirmation of deputy governors, others

Ndubuisi Francis in Abuja

The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Godwin Emefiele, has disclosed that the Committee of governors of the bank will decide in a few days’ time and a date to hold the next Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting of the CBN.

Fielding questions from journalists in Sunti, Niger State, when he accompanied President Muhammadu Buhari on inspection of the N50 billion Sunti Sugar Factory, Emefiele expressed happiness over the resolve by the Senate to screen President Buhari’s nominees to the CBN board.

Two CBN’s deputy governors, Aisha Ahmad and Edward Adamu, and other persons were sent to the Senate for confirmation into the MPC by President Buhari but their appointments are yet to be confirmed.

Emefiele said, “The MPC meeting will hold and I’m very delighted that Senate has decided to screen the nominees earlier sent to them by the president. We will hold it in a few days . MPC was supposed to hold on March 19 or 20.

“What I suspect is that we will be holding our committee of governors meeting and we will decide. And I believe we will just have between seven to 10 days delay and the MPC will hold,” he said.

On the Sunti sugar cane factory, the CBN governor said it was financed by the bank from the real sector support fund.

“You probably already heard the CBN took part in the funding of this project. It’s s N25bn loan at single digit interest rate with a tenure of 10 years. It’s one of those facilties that we have disbursed out of our real sector support fund under the auspices of a couple of banks”, Emefiele said.

“Flour Mills is a local conglomerate in Nigeria. It produces not only sugar but flour and foods generally. So I have no doubt that they will be able to repay the loans.

“The objective of the president that we should produce what we eat and eat what we produce is manifesting– manifesting in the sense that sugar is one of those basic items that is being imported into the country today and it’s depleting our scarce foreign exchange resources”.

“The fact that we can produce sugar now in this country is good. I know this is not the first factory but it is a major one being inaugurated in the life of this administration and I am delighted to be a part of it,” he said.
The Sunti sugar factory occupies 17, 000 hectares of land of which 10,000 hectares used as sugarcane farm with installed sugarcane capacity production in excess of 10,000 tonnes of sugar annually.

“ If you went into the factory, you will marvel at the investment there. It’s not just about the factory alone but they have about 17,000 hectares of land where they are cultivating sugar cane. They have so far cultivated about 3,000 hectares.

“The standard practice is that if you own a sugar mill you should produce for six months in a year. But for the output they have now, they will be producing for just one month instead of six. So what we are trying to do is that through our Anchor Borrowers Programme, we empower small holder farmers who can grow sugar cane plantation which will serve as additional stock for the sugar mill,” CBN Governor said.

On the ban of 41 items support , CBN governor said: “With the success of this sugar factory, nothing is impossible and no hurdle is insurmountable, that we could see this happen in Nigeria.

“Nigeria is a country endowed with a lot of resources, it’s endowed with youth and intelligent people, good soil, I believe we can do it. I want to repeat the promise I have made; if any company is interested in any agricultural, agro allied and agro processing industry, we are ready to support them.”

Meanwhile, CBN, bank operators and other stakeholders in the financial sector have begun deliberation on ways to bring in additional 7.6 million Nigerians into the banking sector in 2018.

The CBN Deputy Governor, Financial System Stability, Dr. Okwu Nnanna, at the Financial Inclusion State Steering Committee (FISSCO) Regional Capacity Building Programme in Abuja said all stakeholders were important in achieving the set target.

“The vulnerable segments in our society remain a major concern for financial inclusion as they constitute a large proportion of the excluded population.

“For instance in Nigeria, the proportion of females without access to formal financial services was 46.3 per cent in 2016 compared to 36.8 per cent of men.

“In addition, a world disability study on people living with disability showed that 25 million Nigerians were living with one form of disability or the other and this acts as a hindrance to accessing basic financial products and services.

“In addition to women and people with disabilities, vulnerable segments can further include youth, rural communities and internally displaced persons and they all should form part of our focus,’’ he said.

Nnanna recommended that to improve access to financial services, affordable savings, credit payment, insurance and pension products should be designed, targeted at the vulnerable groups in the society.

He also urged commercial banks and micro finance banks to increase sensitisation to rural areas on the use of Point of Sale (POS), ATMs, and Cashless mobile money services.

Also, the CBN Head, Digital Financial Services, Mr. Stephen Ambore said getting the unbanked people to have access to financial services would contribute to economic development.

Giving a region-by-region breakdown on financial exclusion rate in the country, he said that the North-west was the most financially excluded zone with an exclusion rate of 70 per cent.
He said that second region with the highest financial exclusion rate was the North-East with a 62 per cent exclusion rate.

The North Central, according to him, had a 39 per cent exclusion rate while South-South had a financial exclusion rate of 31 per cent, and South-East, 28 per cent.
Ambore commended the South West, which he said had the lowest financial exclusion rate, which currently stands at about 18 per cent.

He attributed the challenges facing financial inclusion in the country to illiteracy, religious and cultural factors, security challenges and inappropriate financial service products and slow penetration of financial services in rural areas.

Meanwhile, the CBN Abuja Branch Controller, Mrs Elizabeth Agu said the CBN was targeting to bring in fresh 8.4 million and 8.6 million adult Nigerians into the formal financial sector by 2019 and 2020 respectively.
For the FCT, Agu said that banks operating in the territory had a target to open a minimum of 1,500 new accounts and offer fresh credit to at least 1,000 customers before the end of 2018.