The World Bank has passed a vote of confidence on governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Olayemi Cardoso, saying the reforms under his leadership, particularly his monetary policies, are steering the country in the right direction.
This was made known by Senior Vice President of the World Bank Group, Indermit Gill, in an address to the 30th Nigerian Economic Summit organised by the Nigerian Economic Summit Group in Abuja.
He lauded Cardoso’s approach to managing inflation, pointing out the 850 basis point increase in interest rates over nine months, adding that implementing such comprehensive reforms requires a strong commitment from the political leadership of the country.
“Implementing such a far-reaching reform is impossible without a solid political commitment from the top. The price of PMS has quadrupled since the subsidy cut, imposing terrible hardship across the breadth of Nigeria’s society.
“The Central Bank has had to hike its policy by a huge 850 basis point, almost 9 percentage points in the last month to boost confidence in the naira and anchor inflationary expectations.
“The Central Bank financing of fiscal deficit has finally ended, and Governor Cardoso has been putting Nigeria or helping to put Nigeria on the right course,” Gill said.
Gill further stated that Nigeria has to stay the course for there to be a meaningful return and reward on the lives of the citizens, adding that it will take the country at least 15 years before the policies begin to bear fruits and make Nigeria a global engine in the Sub-Saharan African region.
According to him, this is how countries such as India, Poland, Norway and others achieve economic development and transformation.
“But this is only the beginning, Nigeria will need to stay the course for at least 10 to 17 years to transform its economy. If it does that, it will transform its economy.
“And it will become an engine of growth in Sub-Saharan Africa. And he will help to transform Sub-Saharan Africa. It’s very difficult to do these things, but the rewards are massive.
“This is the lesson from the last forty years as well as the experience of countries such as India, Poland, Korea and Norway,” Gill added.
