Officials of
a federal agency revealed yesterday that the top leaderships on both sides Minister
of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun and Governor of the CBN, Mr.Godwin Emefiele, are
mutually antagonistic of each other’s positions, adding that it has degenerated
to a personality clash.
Hopes of
unanimity of positions and harmony of fiscal and monetary policies appear dim
following an alleged demand for a review of the powers of the Central Bank of
Nigeria, CBN, by the Ministry of Finance.
A newspaper
had said yesterday that the Finance Minister, Mrs Kemi Adeosun, told a visiting
team of legislators to cut the powers of the apex bank for what she allegedly
called extensive powers which she blamed for the disconnect between Federal
Government’s fiscal policies and the monetary policies.
Reacting to
this, a close aide of the minister told Vanguard that the entire publication
was “a hatchet job” against the minister aimed at undermining her reputation.
He alluded to a collusion with CBN by those who he said, rigged the meeting.
He also
stated that media presence at the meeting was masked, adding that many things
the minister said were “doctored” and some totally removed from the content of
the said publication, adding that a formal protest letter from the minister to
the media house was underway.
Surprisingly,
one of the aides of the CBN governor who pleaded anonymity told Vanguard that
the apex bank was equally upset with the publication, but would not dignify it
with a response. He also claimed that the Finance Ministry has been undermining
the apex bank for some time now. Moreover, he claimed that the ministry was
opposed to removal of the 41 items from participating in the interbank foreign
exchange market. The latest discord was coming barely five days after a rapport
appeared to have been forged between the authorities.
The ministry
was fully involved in the pre-monetary policy committee consultative meeting
held last week as prelude to the CBN’s Monetary Policy Committee, MPC, meeting
of Monday and Tuesday this week. However, the outcome of the MPC meeting was at
total variance with the position of the ministry, especially on the benchmark
interest rate, the Monetary Policy Rate, MPR, which the MPC maintained at 14
per cent despite opposition voiced by Adeosun since third quarter of 2016.
Analysts have blamed crises in the economy on policy disharmony between CBN and
the Finance Ministry. They are now more worried at the growing discord with
this week’s development.
Source
Vanguard
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