Cardoso, Kyari, Lokpobiri Appear Before Senate Committee Over Alleged Oil Sector Sabotage

Yemi Cardoso, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Mele Kyari, the Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL, and Heineken Lokpobiri, the Minister of State for Petroleum, appeared before a Senate Adhoc committee investigating alleged economic sabotage in the Nigeria Petroleum industry.

The trio appeared before the committee led by the Chairman and leader of the Senate, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele on Wednesday.

During the session, Bamidele asserted that there would be no room for grandstanding, warning that no one would be exempted from scrutiny in the ongoing investigation, which included determining the level of compliance of the NNPCL’s Direct Sale and Direct Purchase arrangements in line with the provisions of the Petroleum Industry Act, including the extent of transparency and accountability in the scheme.

Meanwhile, Cardoso, has assured Nigerians and private sector investors that interest rate would soon come down from the current of 30 percent.

Yemi Cardoso said the current interest rate was fixed by Monetary Policy Committee of the CBN and not him.

Cardoso said this while speaking at Business CEO Forum, in Lagos. He said the MPC focus on data and not emotions.

The CBN governor’s clarification comes amid outcries from the Chairman of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote and former presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi.

Speaking at a three-day National Manufacturing Policy Summit organized by the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Dangote said, “Right now, at 30%, there is no way anybody can create jobs.” Dangote added that the current interest rate would not grow Nigeria’s economy.

On his part, Peter Obi said the 30 percent interest rate would kill Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs). He argued that no private employer would like to take a credit at such rate when energy cost remained the sole duty of the company to bear.

Cardoso said data available to MPC, Ways and Means and interventions from governments necessitated raising the interest rates.

“Sadly, we have a situation where we were all there when a lot of money supply went into the system. We all saw Ways and Means soar to ₦27 trillion. We saw interventions ₦10.5 trillion. It has its consequences. Painful, but it has its consequences. And to a large respect, that is what we’re paying for now,” he added.

Giving further clarification, CBN governor added, “Interest rates are not set by the governor of the central bank. Interest rates are set by the Monetary Policy Committee. And thankfully, we have a monetary comments policy committee comprised of independent minded thinking people. And these are people who are not given to emotion.

“What they look at is data, and they basically go along with what the data says. The MPC has made it very clear that for them the major issue is taming inflation have also made it very clear that they will do whatever is necessary to tame inflation.”

He said, “The MPC is not oblivious to the fact that ultimately we do want to grow. The country does need growth. If these hikes were not done at the time they were done. If you recall, naira to dollar was almost tipping over.

“This helps to stabilize. Also, it is a time issue. This is not something that I expect would remain with us forever. To the extent that the right policies are used, and obviously, with the results we’ve seen the right policies are being used. I believe that in the not too distant future, things will begin to modulate and interest rates will come down.”