New CBN gov pledges to tackle unemployment

ABUJA and blaise udunze lagos New Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Godwin Emefiele, yesterday expressed worry over the impressive growth in the Gross Domestic Products (GDP) without a corresponding reduction in the unemployment rate, which he said rose to 23.9 per cent in 2012 relative to 13.9 per cent in 2000.

According to him, “particularly worrisome is the rate of youth unemployment, which stood at 54 per cent in 2012. With an annual addition of 1.8 million Nigerians to the labour pool, the central bank cannot afford to sit idly by and concentrate only on price and monetary stability.”

Against this background, Emefiele hinted the apex bank would be expanding its policies beyond price and monetary stability to address the huge unemployment challenges plaguing the country.

Meanwhile, the cashless policy initiative introduced by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in 2012 with Lagos as the pilot scheme will now go nationwide from next month with charges on deposits abrogated.

Speaking during his maiden press conference in Abuja, Mr. Emefiele, said the abrogation of the charges followed the plethora of complaints by customers particularly regarding the charges being imposed on cash deposits.

“This has resulted in customers devising various means to avoid the charges through opening of multiple accounts and other dis-ingenous behaviours, all aimed at undermining the objective of the policy,” he said.

However, CBN boss said it retained the charges on withdrawals at the current 3 per cent for individual transactions exceeding N500,000 and 5 per cent for corporate transactions exceeding N3 million.

Because these fees go to the commercial banks, Emefiele said that CBN will later decide what percentage of the fees on excess drawings will be redeemed by the bank while the rest shall be remitted to the CBN.

Recall that a year after Lagos went cashless, five other states, including Anambra, Abia, Rivers, Kano and FCT, followed suit.

On development financing, Emefiele noted that steps would be taken to channel credits to productive sectors, adding that proper monitoring and performance measures will be imposed to ensure that goals of increased employment and poverty reduction are attained.

“This will require a review of the bank’s development finance programme, the participatory agencies responsible for the disbursement of funds, improving our monitoring capacity and developing performance targets relevant to our focus on generating employment and poverty reduction”.

To be effective, the measures taken by the bank will not work in isolation. We will work with the fiscal authorities in reducing other structural distortions to productive growth as this will enhance the potential impact, which enhanced access to credit will provide in stimulating growth and employment generation,” he assured.