Exchange rate tops agenda as MPC holds first meeting in 2017

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Foreign exchange crisis will top the agenda Monday and and Tuesday as the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) holds its first meeting in 2017.

Members of the committee are also expected to come up with more measures to curtail ongoing recession and other economic challenges confronting Nigeria as a country.

Inflation, growing poverty across the country, liquidity challenges in some commercial Banks among others are expected to take quality time of members during the meeting.

Meanwhile, the Federal Government has released N375 million to feed almost 700,000 primary school pupils in five states.

The Senior Special Assistant on Media & Publicity to the President, Office of the Vice President, Mr. Laolu Akande, explained that the Social Investment Programmes, SIP, are proceeding at different stages of implementation.

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Explaining further, he the Federal Government last week released money to the states of Anambra, Ogun, Oyo, Osun and Ebonyi to cover the feeding for 10 school days in continuation of the Homegrown School Feeding Programme.

He said: “The sum of about N375, 434, 870 has just been released and paid to 7,909 cooks in those States for the feeding of a total of 677, 476 primary school pupils,” he said. Giving the breakdown, Akande said Ogun State got a total of N119, 648, 900 paid to 1.381 cooks to feed 170, 927 pupils; Ebonyi State got N115, 218, 600 paid to 1.466 cooks to feed 164, 598 pupils; while Anambra State got N67.5m paid to 937 cooks to feed 96,489 pupils.

According to him, Oyo State got N72.2m paid to 1437 cooks to feed 103, 269 pupils while Osun State got N867,370 paid to 2688 to feed 142, 193 pupils. He said all monies were paid directly to the cooks and cover 10 days of school. He said the figures would go up later this week when Zamfara and Enugu States are expected to be paid N188.7 million and N67.2 million respectively. In Zamfara, the sum would be paid to 2,738 cooks to feed 269, 665 pupils while in Enugu, the sum would be paid to 1128 cooks to feed 96, 064 pupils.

He explained over N631 million would have been released so far in 2017 for school feeding in seven States, paid to 11,775 cooks and meant to feed over one million primary school. On N-Power, Akande stated that the process of payments of verified graduates who are beneficiaries has advanced and at different stages of progress in all but two states, noting that more and more of such beneficiaries are posting their glad experiences of receiving alerts on the Social Media. He said that payment of the December Stipends which had gone across the country would be completed in all states except two that did not meet the extended deadline for the verification process for December stipends. He added that the processing of January stipends was also in advanced stages. He assured some beneficiaries who have issues to remain patient, while observing that quite a number of the beneficiaries have banking information irregularities. He said the payment of the unemployed graduates which has created a huge buzz across the country especially on the Social Media is being done in batches. Akande said that the payment of Conditional Cash Transfer, CCT, would continue in the nine pilot states of Bauchi, Borno, Niger, Kogi, Cross Rivers, Osun, Oyo Ekiti, and Kwara States. He said that challenges were being experienced with the banks in some of the states, but pointed out that beneficiaries have continued to receive their stipends which are being paid for two months to cover the months of December and January.