The National Assembly has reduced the budget of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) by 50 per cent. The director of the Bank in charge of Financial System Stability (FSS) 20:2020 Implementation Committee, Suleyman Mohammed, disclosed this in Abuja, yesterday.
He said reduction in the Bank’s expenditure has already begun to take its toll on projects costing N198 billion.Mohammed revealed the pains the Bank was undergoing when he led members of the Committee to the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC), to seek financial contribution.
He said: “CBN got a 50 per cent cut in its budget this year and this has immediately affected its operations, including the FSS:20:2020, which it has been single- handedly funding since the creation of the Committee, even though it’s a joint project of all financial sector regulatory agencies. That is why we are here to implore you to assist the Committee with funds to drive the initiative.”
Reacting, the NDIC team, led by its Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Umaru Ibrahim, assured the FSS:20:2020 Committee of its readiness to play its funding commitment and advised the team to carry out a harmonisation of the budget.
Meanwhile, operators in the manufacturing sector of the Nigerian economy, yesterday, said the ban, last year, of 41 items from the list of goods to benefit from foreign exchange, is one of the factors that have caused recession in the nation’s economy.
Speaking at the presentation in Abuja of a survey on the manufacturing sector undertaken by NOI Polls in collaboration with the Centre for the Studies in of African Economies (CSEA), the operators said the sectors lost N1.4 trillion between July and December 2015.
Source: guardian.ng