CBN Suggests Sale of Redundant Public Assets to Generate Revenue

By Adedapo Adesanya

In order to create employment and generate more revenue for national economic growth, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), through its Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), has called on federal government to urgently to sell off all redundant public assets.

This suggestion was given while Governor of the CBN, Mr Godwin Emefiele, was reading a communique issued by the MPC after its meeting last Friday in Abuja.

The committee, in what it termed the Big Bang Approach, said federal government should do this through “an efficient, effective, and transparent privatization process,” which will ensure fiscal liquidity.

It noted that if this step was taken by government, it would help the country to generate significant revenue to fund the proposed 2020 budget and resuscitate the non-performing asset.

Doing this, the committee further said, will help reduce Nigeria’s unemployment rate which stands at 23.1 percent as at Q3, 2018 and also contribute effectively in growing the national economy.

The committee also stressed that the instability of global oil prices, which affects the nation’s external reserves, is a wake-up call on the need for fiscal buffers which is one of the way’s the nation could boost its non-oil revenue.

It further urged the Ninth National Assembly not to increase the oil price budget benchmark in the medium term from $55 per barrel in order to avoid budgetary overruns at the implementation stage of the budget as oil prices are expected to remain tight amid global tension.

Business Post reported last week that the Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) was retained at 13.5 percent. Other policy indicators left unchanged were the Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) at 22.5 percent, the Liquidity Ratio at 30 percent and the Asymmetric Corridor at +200 and -500 basis points around the MPR.