Oil Theft: CBN decries negative impact on country’s economy

The Monetary Policy Committee of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has agreed that the increasing rate of oil theft is impacting negatively on the economy and affecting the accretion of the country’s foreign reserves.

 

 

 

 

 

Mr Godwin Emefiele, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, stated this while reading the communiqué after the inaugural Monetary Policy Committee meeting in Abuja.

 

 

 

The Federal Government has disclosed it is finalizing plans to deal with the issue of oil theft, which forces Nigeria to lose $4 billion annually or 150,000 as reported by Bloomberg.

 

 

“The committee noted, with grave concern, the unprecedented rate of oil theft recorded in recent time and its debilitating impact on government revenue and accretion to reserves,” said the CBN Governor.

 

 

In the medium term, he said, the MPC was hopeful that the Dangote Refinery’s planned start-up later this year would assist in boosting Nigeria’s petroleum product supply.

 

 

He said the MPC also noticed that the rising price of fuel was exacerbated by a lack of energy supplies, which had a negative impact on domestic prices.

 

“MPC advises the CBN management and the fiscal authorities to take specific and urgent actions to avoid many power generating stations shutdown for turn-around maintenance, resulting in the current unwarranted shutdown of generating assets,” he said.

 

 

The committee also evaluated the bank’s multiple interventions to boost productivity in manufacturing, industry, agriculture, energy, infrastructure, healthcare, and micro, small, and medium firms, according to Emefiele.

 

 

He said the bank disbursed N29.67 billion under the Anchor Borrowers’ Program between January and February 2022 for the procurement of inputs and the planting of maize, rice, and wheat, the three crops that had previously been major sources of FX demand.

 

 

“These disbursements bring the total under the programme to over 4.52 million smallholder farmers, cultivating 21 commodities across the country, comes to a total of N975.61bn,” he said.

 

 

 

Source: Nairametrics