IMF, Others Call For Complementary Fiscal Policies To Tame Rising Inflation

The International Monetary Fund (IMF)  and other experts at the Nigerian Economic Summit #NES28 have called for deliberate fiscal programmes to support the monetary policies and programmes by the Central Bank of Nigerian aimed at taming Nigeria’s rising inflation.

Speaking during a panel discussion tagged: “Monetary Policy Management in Challenging Times” at the just concluded summit, IMF’s resident representative to Nigeria Mr Ari Aisen said

Nigeria will decide what’s appropriate for it in exchange rate management.

However, Aisen said for Nigeria to continue to defend the exchange rate, “you would need enough reserve to defend your local currency,” saying “That would be difficult to do because multiple objectives require multiple measures to tackle challenges.” He stated that the recent hike in monetary rates is an important aspect of controlling inflation.

Aisen who said fiscal deficit can be very large, said financing the deficit through money creation would complicate things and make inflation high. He was speaking to CBN funding of government expenditures through ways and means.

As part of recommendation for Nigeria to tackle fiscal deficits, the IMF resident representative said for Nigeria to achieve make headway, growth, employment and price stability are all good objects.