Smoke coming out of the Federal Secretariat, during the fire incident at a section of the secretariat in Abuja, recently

The Chief Executive Officer of Johnsons Holdings Ltd., Mr Johnson Joseph, has called on the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to reduce the existing interest rate to help stimulate economic growth.
Joseph told newsmen on Monday in Abuja that the existing interest rate had remained much too high, thereby hindering economic development.
He said that the ongoing Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting in Abuja should look at the issue critically and see how to reduce the interest rate.
It would be recalled that during the last MPC meeting in March, the committee retained the Monetary Policy Rate (interest rate) at 13 per cent.
The committee also retained the Cash Reserve Requirement (CRR) on private and public sector deposits at 20 per cent and 75 per cent, respectively.
Joseph said the manufacturing sector would want the committee to reappraise performance of the economy in 2015 with a view to formulating friendly policies that would enhance growth in the sector.
According to him, if the committee evaluates the performance of the economy in 2015, it will guide it in arriving at decisions that had affected the economy positively.
“Other than the relative stability in the exchange rate, the effect has been mostly negative on the sector.
“Most of the first quarter financial results for the major manufacturing companies have now been released and almost without exception; all the companies have witnessed a decline in the key performance metrics.”
The chief executive officer said the sector would, therefore, want to see a reduction in the nation’s MPR to grow the real sector and prevent the economy from further decline.
He urged the apex bank to offer some palliatives to the sector in form of special credit or intervention funds.
“If the manufacturing sector can have access to low cost financing, it will go a long way towards addressing the type of decline we have witnessed in the sector since the beginning of this year.”
Mr Bismarck Rewane, Managing Director of Financial Derivatives, a financial and investment advisory firm, said that bringing down the interest would affect the value of naira.
“The question is, are you going to bring down interest rate to stimulate growth or are you going to keep the rate high to protect the naira?
“If the inflation has gone up, then interest rate cannot afford to be coming down.
“There is what we call monetary policy dilemma.”
He added that Nigeria was facing a “stagflation”, meaning growth is stagnant while inflation is increasing.
Bismark said that the only way out was to have catalyst for economic activities.
Commenting on whether consideration for a change of government would affect MPC’s decision, Rewane said economic realities did not have timetable.
He explained that prices would always go up whether there was a new administration or not, saying that domestic political timetable remained the country’s business.
“The fact is prices of goods will go in a direction; the value of the naira will go in another direction.
“It is the Nigerian government that will take economic variables into consideration; economic variables cannot take Nigeria’s political timetable into consideration.”