Nigeria’s Senate to receive report on CBN’s MPC nominees next week

Bukola Saraki, Nigeria’s Senate president said Wednesday that a report into the request by Nigeria’s president for the confirmation of new members of the central bank’s interest rate committee will be submitted to the upper house of parliament next week.

Lawmakers in Nigeria’s Senate said details of the nominees had been formally referred to the Committee on Banking. The committee will submit its report to the red chamber house in a week.

The Senate had held up some of President Muhammadu Buhari’s nominees in a political spat which has left the central bank committee unable to form a quorum to set interest rates since the beginning of the year.

“Your report should be back in one week,” Saraki said of the report, to be compiled by the committee.

If lawmakers accept the committee’s report it will be sent to Buhari and the new members can be sworn in.

The central bank was forced to cancel its rate-setting meeting in January because it was unable to reach a quorum. It meant the headline interest rate was left unchanged at 14 percent, where it has been for more than a year.

However, if the report is submitted next Wednesday the new members will not be in place for the next scheduled meeting of the monetary policy committee, which is due to take place on Monday and Tuesday.