The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is set to meet this week, on the 22nd and 23rd, for the last time this year (2021), IgbereTV reports.
The 10-man committee headed by the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele last met on September 17th, 2021, publishing its 38th communique that detailed the basis for its decision.
MPC meetings provide an opportunity for the CBN to communicate its monetary policy decisions on the economy. However, more recently, it been dominated by drama, surprises and rants especially during the press conferences hosted by Godwin Emefiele.
For example, at the press briefing following the end of the last meeting, Godwin Emefiele went after the operators of abokiFX, an online forex portal that publishes black market rates for foreign exchange transactions. He accused them of manipulating rates even going as far as bizarrely asking them to come to Abuja if they wanted a “fight” with him.
At the previous meeting in July, Emefiele surprised journalists at the media briefing when he announced a ban of Bureau De Change Operators in the country. He accused them of becoming “wholesale dealers, illegally in foreign exchange to the tune of millions of dollars per transaction” instead of selling to retail end users.
The media is already getting used to a drama-filled MPC press briefing, thus we asked analysts at the Nairametrics weekly ClubHouse session “OnTheMoney” what they expect from the CBN this week.
