JUST-IN: Senate Confirms Cardoso As CBN Gov

The Senate has confirmed the nomination of Dr. Olayemi Cardoso as the new Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

The Senate also confirmed the nomination of four deputy governors for the apex bank, who will work with Cardoso as Management Team of the CBN.

This followed hours of screening of the nominees by the Red Chamber.

Meanwhile, in the course of the screening exercise, Cardoso disclosed that money supply was behind the rising inflation in the country.

Also, the new CBN team has disclosed that it will need to abandon some of the policies of its predecessors led by Godwin Emefiele and focus solely on monetary policies to strengthen the Naira.

The deputy governors that were screened and confirmed are: Emem Usoro, Abdullahi Dattijo,
Bala Bello and Philip Ikeazor.

Earlier while answering questions from the lawmakers, Cardoso said the apex bank was faced with numerous challenges, adding that they have identified the challenges and how to address them.

“We have identified issues of corporate governance, diminished institution autonomy, discontinuity of orthodox policies and foreign currency issues.

“Addressing inflation and price stability is the function of the CBN. We will address the issue of foreign exchange unification. If there is a need for interest rate alignment, we will do it for economic growth,” he stated.

To manage the economic policy, Cardoso said size matters, adding that they have identified macroeconomic indices and will facilitate new ways to attain $1trillion GDP in eight years.

On inflation, Cardoso said each will be tackled based on their causes.

“If the inflation is on food, we should ramp up production of food. If inflation is on energy, we know the challenges of energy. If you are importing, automatically you are importing inflation,” Cardoso said.

On the issue of money supply, Cardoso said the way money has gone up in Nigeria, “that itself is behind inflation.”

“It is the problem. It is a big problem.
But going forward, we will do everything possible to ensure that deficit financing does not bring problems to us.

“These are the assurances I can give you coming from outside because we will maintain a good working relationship to block the excesses we had in the past.

“I believe that the CBN under us will have no choice but to embrace a culture of compliance,” Cardoso said, adding that they will abide by the CBN Act.

“We will not wait for oversight before we interact with the lawmakers. We will have zero tolerance to abuse of processes.

“We recognise the fact that we need to work closely with these chambers at the National Assembly to ensure compliance.

“Now that there is a reset at the CBN, we have to work closely to ensure that there is compliance,” Cardoso reiterated, adding that the deficit financing and undo money glut was responsible for 50% of inflation evidence-based and monetary policy.

He told the Senate that there was a need to stabilise the Naira to settle Nigeria’s outstanding debts, stating that the country is only spending money in printing currency rather than bringing in revenues.

He opined that Nigeria will not make progress if it is not able to handle that side of foreign exchange rate.

Cardoso said the issue of foreign exchange rate was worrisome, adding that Nigeria must have a stable exchange rate.

He maintained that CBN leadership under his watch had no choice but to embrace a culture of compliance and collaboration, stressing that they would not wait until the Senate oversight them.