• Thursday, March 28, 2024
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BusinessDay

Senate refers CBN Deputy Govs, MPC nominees screening to committee

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The Senate has referred the screening of two deputy governorship nominees of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Aishah Ahmad and Edward Adamu to its Committee on Banking, Insurance and other Financial Institutions.

 

Also referred to the Committee for screening are four members of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the CBN namely: Adeola Adenikinju; Aliyu Sanusi; Robert Asogwa and Asheikh Maidugu.

 

The panel chaired by Rafiu Ibrahim (APC, Kwara State) is expected to submit its report to Committee of the Whole for consideration.

 

Deputy Senate Leader, Bala Ibn Na’allah, who presented the request of President Muhammadu Buhari at plenary on Wednesday, called for the expeditious confirmation of the nominees.

 

In his ruling, Senate President Bukola, who presided over the session, referred the screening of the nominees to the Committee on Banking, Insurance and other Financial Institutions and report back within one week.

 

Recall that on Tuesday, the Senate reversed itself over its resolution not to confirm members of the committee ahead of next week’s meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

 

It therefore mandated its Committee on Banking, Insurance and other Financial Institutions to immediately confirm the two CBN deputy governorship nominees and four members of the MPC to pave the way for the MPC meeting.

 

The resolution followed a motion moved by Ibrahim.

 

He informed his colleagues that the inability to confirm the nominees sent by President Buhari had stalled the MPC meeting due to lack of quorum.

 

The MPC of CBN is responsible for formulating the country’s monetary and credit policy.

 

The lawmaker called for a concession in order to do the confirmation process for the two deputy governors and four other members of the MPC.

 

According to him, inability to hold the MPC meeting had seriously affected Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) into the country, adding that of the 12 members of the MPC, only three are valid, while the tenures of the others expired since December 2017.

 

The lack of quorum had led to the inability to hold MPC meeting in January 22 and 23, 2018.