1 week Ago By OlakunleAwoniyi
Growth and Development of Northern Nigeria (GDNN), an association of citizens of the region concerned about its development, weekend, observed that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is tightening the cash reserve ratio (CRR) to 50-60%. Speaking with journalists in Abuja, the acting secretary, Public Policy Advocacy of the group, Mallam Haruna Buhari, said commercial and merchant banks can only have access to 50% of what they have in their CBN current account, while the rest 50% is held by the apex bank. Haruna stated that the meaning is that CBN, believe that this measure is to remove cash in circulation to address inflation, but forgot that the action in addition to raising interest rate forces banks to charge extra on lending in order to pay those who deposited money with them to earn interest which same CBN tried to encourage as a mop up measure of liquidity.
He also stated that this, coupled with the prevailing high interest regime imposed on financial sector by the CBN raises the cost of production and the consequences of these returns back to the consumer the CBN and the government are trying to protect. Consequently, inflation keep rising in an endless circle. He said GDNN is off the opinion that the current system of fighting corruption tends to lean more on going after those who have stolen than using the theft data gathered by the process of investigation to search for the right or appropriate tools that are available in the advancing information technology space to make it impossible to steal in the first place.
“There is indeed need to change our strategy and approach,” he said..
