The national leader of the All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, yesterday called for lowering of the interest rates to mitigate the effects of economic dislocation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a position paper titled, “The Case against High Interest Rates in Time of Contagion,” Tinubu noted that the pandemic presents the most auspicious time to “correct” the interest rate. According to him, high interest rates constitute “a fundamental drag on national economic growth.” He said while lower rates would spur domestic investment and production while creating both jobs and wealth, high rates serve only to suppress job and wealth creation.

He said while the Central Bank of Nigeria had demonstrated its financial agility by establishing a growing number of special financing programs for various industries and sectors of the economy, those programmes exposed important contradictions in the CBN’s position.

“The special schemes are an implicit admission that normal rates stifle investment borrowing and thus suppress the economy. The extraordinary schemes would not be required if the general interest rate was at a proper level. “The economic fallout from the coronavirus may present the best, most pressing case for revising the CBN’s high interest rate policy. “The undue rates penalise domestic investment and consumer borrowing. This reduces both aggregate domestic supply and, to a lesser degree, aggregate domestic demand.

“The chronic gap between domestic supply and demand has been filled by bloated levels of imports and encouraged an overvalued exchange rate that the high interests have helped produce.”

Read more: https://www.dailytrust.com.ng/tinubu-high-interest-rates-inimical-to-job-wealth-creation.html

We've heard you baba

Although covid 19 has done more harm than good, I believe there are some outside-the-radar reparations that it has engendered, such as air quality, greenery, animal replenishment, exposing the gullibility of some nation's, and teaching us how to be communal amongst many other things. CBN should learn what covid 19 has to teach.

If this Covid-19 did not teach Nigeria to become self sufficient in our basic needs, we and our resources will forever belong to the old and new Masters .