Vunderkind
Social Member
The Senate Committee on Banking, Insurance and Other Financial Institutions has urged the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to ensure effective implementation of policies that will help to strengthen the economy.
This is contained in a statement issued by Mr Isaac Okoroafor, CBN’s Deputy Director, Corporate Communications, in Abuja on Tuesday.
It stated that the Chairman of the committee, Sen. Bassey Otu, gave the charge at the hearing of the implementation of CBN’s 2013 operating budget and presentation 2014 operating budget.
``The state of the economy has been very challenging. You have been doing quite alright in terms of performance.
``There has been a lot of controversies in recent times linking the Central Bank. We won’t want it to affect the institution,” he said.
Otu urged staff of the bank to concentrate on their work and not to allow certain issues to affect the objectives of the institution.
He also called on Nigerians not to allow controversies over the suspension of the CBN Governor, Malam Lamido Sanusi, to distract the bank from discharging its mandates.
On the implementation of the banks 2013 budget, the statement stated that the Deputy Governor, Corporate Services, Alhaji Suleiman Barau, defended the high budgetary expenditure, attributing it to the liquidity management.
Barau, according to the statement, also identified quantitative easing in the United States and Western European countries as contributory to the high expenditure.
He said that situation led to upsurge in foreign portfolio investment inflow which investors took advantage of the higher yield prevailing in the Nigerian market.
``The pressure on the foreign reserves stemmed from the activities of these foreign investors who want to repatriate their returns on investment,’’ he said.