$8bn profit repatriation: Nigeria expects to announce its ‘amicable’ settlement with MTN

Godwin Emefiele, the CBN governor disclosed Thurdsay that the regulatory bank and MTN Nigeria have come to an “amicable” settlement on the contentious Certificate of Capital Importation (CCI) issue, adding:  “we are in a process where we are saying this matter will be resolved.”

Emefiele told journalists after the banks Monetary Policy Committee  (MPC) meeting held November 21 and 22, 2018 where it again voted to retain the  Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) at 14 percent along with all the other  base rates that it the CCI issue with the South African Company was an “isolated matter.”

“We have held meetings with the MTN Group from South Africa and we have held meetings and we are at the verge of announcing the resolution. I am very certain that we have reached the end of the road on this issue, and I will continue to say that the sanctity of the CCI issued by our banks remain sacrosanct and no other company is being investigated on the issue of CCI, no other person is being investigated on the issue of CCI, this is an isolated matter.

“The issue of MTN is being resolved and there is no need for anybody to be worried. This issue will be resolved equitably and amicably for the benefit of all,” he said.

Speaking previously on why the CBN voted to again retain the MPR at 14 percent, Emefiele said the decision to hold the rates was because it was confident in the positive outlook of the economy; pegging the growth projection of 1.75 percent in 2018.

According to him, “improvement in productivity in the oil and non-oil sectors are also expected to drive output growth in the medium term. The committee however, acknowledged the downside risks to this outlook to include absence of fiscal buffers, low domestic credit and weak aggregate demand.”

MPC also said improvement in security, improved harvest, as well as stable exchange rate are expected to moderate inflation.

Reviewing the economy in the last two months, MPC noted that “credit to the private sector grossly under-performed below the 2018 benchmark of 12.4 percent.

“The under performance of the monetary aggregate was of concern to the MPC, which impressed it on CBN to ensure credit delivery to the small and medium scale enterprises”.