he Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has said it will engage with the Nigeria National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited to find ways to end the lingering fuel scarcity, which it said was caused by shortage in supply of the product to local marketers.
CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, who made the disclosure on Monday, said scarcity of the product was responsible for the arbitrary increase in the prices of diesel and premium motor spirit (petrol) across the country. He expressed concern that the increase in energy prices was a major cause of the rise in headline inflation that rose to 15.7 per cent in February.
“If these actions are taken, we are positive that inflation will come down,” Emefiele said at a media briefing to release outcome of this month’s meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the CBN.
Meanwhile, the MPC has decided by a vote of six members against four to retain all monetary instruments around the Monetary Policy Rate at 11.5 per cent.
The apex bank held the asymmetric corridor of +100/-700 basis points was also retained, same for the Cash Reserve Ratio at 27.5 per cent, while Liquidity Ratio was also kept at 30 per cent
