The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has continued to sensitize Nigerians to embrace its intervention programmes so as to promote financial stability and economic development.
CBN’s Director of Corporate Communications, Mr Osita Nwanisiobi said this at the opening session of a two- day fair organized by the Bank in Owerri.
Nwanisiobi, represented by the Deputy Director, Corporate Communications Department, Mr Sam Okogbue, said that the intervention programmes were aimed at business emancipation and poverty reduction.
Speaking on the theme: “Promoting Financial Stability and Economic Development,” Nwanisiobi said that the CBN had rolled out interventions in the agricultural, manufacturing and other sectors.
He added that the CBN’s Anchor Borrower’s programme was the Nation’s saving grace for increased availability of rice during the heat of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“During the COVID-19 pandemic, rice was the most single popular component of our palliatives. This is a result of the CBN’s Anchor Borrower’s programme for rice farmers,” he said.
He, however, decried Nigeria’s over-dependence on importation, a factor which he said was responsible for the fall of the exchange rate of the Naira.
He described the manufacturing sector as a life wire for economic development adding that “no successful economy thrives on promotion of imported products over the exportation of locally manufactured products.”
In her presentation, Mrs. Uchenna Onyene of the Currency Operations Department called on Nigerians to handle the Naira with care in line with the provisions of Section 21, Sub-section 4 of the CBN Act 2007.
She urged Nigerians to embrace the CBN’s cash-less policy so as to reduce risk and promote seamlessness of transactions adding that the bank was committed to ensure innovation in payments for better customer experience.
The sensitization programme, which was also held virtually with the participants in Awka, Anambra State had many bank customers in attendance.
Highlight of the event was the onboarding of stakeholders on the eNaira platform.
