Concerned by the seeming shortage of cash in the banking system as well as the fragile macroeconomic environment, the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) on Tuesday reduced the cash reserve requirement (CRR) to 25 per cent, down from 31 per cent in order to ease banking system liquidity.

This is just as the CBN Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, stated that no government agency had been exempted from complying with the treasury single account (TSA).

“The truth is that as far as I am concerned, I have not seen any memo that exempts any institution from the TSA. So, as a result, I will advise those who think that they are exempted to avoid creating confusion. I have not seen any memo on that and for that reason no organisation is exempted.“I will appeal to those affected by the movement of funds to the CBN to please comply,” the CBN governor said while responding to questions from journalists.

However, Emefiele’s position conflicted with the memo from the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation, which was sent to the CBN last week and was sighted by MONITOR9JA exempting 13 agencies of the federal government from transferring their revenues to the single treasury account.

A senior official of the central bank also acknowledged that the CBN had received the memo, but would not admit it publicly so as not to encourage other federal agencies to seek for exemption from the presidency.

Earlier, Emefiele, who read the communique at the end of the two-day meeting of the MPC in Abuja, said members resolved to retain the monetary policy rate (MPR) at 13 per cent, with the symmetric corridor of 200 basis points around the MPR, and retain the liquidity ratio at 30 per cent.

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http://monitor9ja.com/2015/09/cbn-cuts-crr-to-25-holds-benchmark-rate-at-13/