The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) disclosed on Monday that it has disbursed N295.695bn out of the over N1.15trn COVID-19 intervention fund to manufacturers, health care sector, the SMEs and the households.
The CBN Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, gave this hint during the July 2020 Monetary Policy Committee’s (MPC’s) meeting virtual press briefing.
The breakdown of the disbursements showed that N49.195bn of the N50 billion Household and SME facility had been disbursed to over 92,000 beneficiaries, N152.9bn to the manufacturing sector and N93.6bn to the healthcare sector, amongst many other sector-specific facilities.
He said the committee is hopeful that upon further drawdown of these intervention facilities, the much needed reset and rebound of the Nigerian economy will become a reality.
Meanwhile, the CBN also retained the Monetary Policy Rate (MPR), the benchmark interest rate, at 12.5 percent to check rising inflation currently at 12.56 percent.
It also retained the cash reserve ratio (CRR) at 27.5%, liquidity ratio at 30% and asymmetric corridor around the MPR at +200/-500 basis points.
The CBN said the decision to retain the rates was to check the rising inflationary rate and the need to consolidate on the gains achieved.
He explained further that tightening would increase the cost of production which would translate to higher prices of goods and services and harder economic conditions for Nigerians.
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