Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Olayemi Cardoso, on Friday slammed his predecessor, Godwin Emefiele for undertaking policies which he said put the country’s apex bank in a bad light in the past few years.
Cardoso made this remark in his speech at the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria’s 50th-anniversary event in Lagos.
According to Cardoso, the CBN suffered from corporate governance failures, diminished institutional autonomy, a deviation from the core mandate, and an unorthodox use of monetary tools.
He also identified an inefficient and opaque foreign exchange market that hindered clear access and a raid into fiscal activities as significant challenges for the apex bank in the past few years before promising that the issues affecting the Bank would be tackled under his watch.
“I am aware that events over the past few years have also put the CBN in a bad light. These issues can be attributed to various factors, such as corporate governance failures, diminished institutional autonomy of the Central Bank of Nigeria, a deviation from the core mandate of the Bank, unorthodox use of monetary tools, an inefficient and opaque foreign exchange market that hindered clear access, a foray into fiscal activities under the cover of development finance activities.
“There was also a lack of clarity in the relationship between fiscal and monetary policies, among other challenges.
“Hitherto, the CBN had strayed from its core mandates and was engaged in quasi-fiscal activities that pumped over N10tn into the economy through almost different initiatives in sectors ranging from agriculture, aviation, power, youth and many others. These distracted the Bank from achieving its objectives and took it into areas with limited expertise,” he said.
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