By Giwa SHILE
Prof. Sherriffdeen Tella, a Senior Lecturer, Olabisi Onibanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Ogun on Wednesday urged business owners to source for loans at the Bank of Industry (BOI) and the capital market.
According to the don, such will give business operators the opportunity to mobilise funds to boost their activities.
Tella is of the Department of Economics in the university.
He said in Lagos that the outcome of the CBN Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting which retained the lending rate did not come to him as a surprise.
CBN retained the MPC rate at 14 per cent alongside other policy parameters.
The don, who said that he had predicted that the rates would not change, added that the high interest rate had been part of the high cost of production, locally.
” If the rates are brought down, now that elections are around the corner and politicking already on, inflation will be the result.
”So businesses should go to specialised banks like BOI and the capital markets to mobilise funds,” Tella said.
The economist, however, urged the Federal Government to reduce bureaucracy in the implementation of the 2018 budget.
Members of MPC rose from their meeting on Tuesday retaining the MPR at 14 per cent and the asymmetric corridor of +200/-500 basis points around the MPR.
It also retained the Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) at 22.5 per cent and the Liquidity Ratio at 30 per cent.
