CBN postpones MPC meeting

• Emefiele reveals CBN N50bn investment in Sunti Sugar Cane Factory in Niger State

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has postponed the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting earlier scheduled to hold next week.

CBN Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, in Sunti, Niger State, when he accompanied President Muhammadu Buhari on inspection of the N50 billion Sunti Sugar Factory, said that the Committee of Governors of the Bank will decide in a few days the time and date to hold the next Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting of the CBN.

“What I suspect is that we will be holding our committee of governors meeting and we will decide. And I believe we will just have between seven to 10 days delay and the MPC will hold,” Emefiele said.

The CBN Governor commended the Senate for resolving to screen President Buhari’s nominees to the CBN board.

Emefiele acknowledged that the Sunti Sugar Cane Factory was financed by the CBN from the Real Sector Support Fund.

“You probably already heard the CBN took part in the funding of this project. It’s a N25 billon loan at single digit interest rate with 10 years tenure. It’s one of those facilities that we have disbursed out of our real sector support fund under the auspices of a couple of banks,” he said.

“Flour Mills is a local conglomerate in Nigeria. It produces not only sugar but flour and foods, generally. So, I have no doubt that they will be able to repay the loans.

“The objective of the president that we should produce what we eat and eat what we produce is manifesting– manifesting in the sense that sugar is one of those basic items that are being imported into the country today and it’s depleting our scarce foreign exchange resources.

“The fact that we can produce sugar now in this country is good. I know this is not the first factory but it is a major one being inaugurated in the life of this administration and I am delighted to be a part of it,” the CBN Governor highlighted.

The Sunti sugar factory occupies 17, 000 hectares of land of which 10,000 hectares used as sugarcane farm with installed sugarcane capacity production in excess of 10,000 tonnes of sugar annually.