Source: Net News, 13 December, 2009

Nigerian Finance Minister, Mansur Muhtar, has said a team from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) would meet in April next year to fast track the actualization of the proposed African Central Bank.Muhtar told journalists that, “Nigeria is very happy to be championing the course and we are also happy that Nigeria has been selected as the location for the central bank’’.

“We signed the agreement with the understanding that Nigeria will host the headquarters and we also made a commitment to providing some resources to support this process and we have been taking stock,” he said.
At the home fron, Muhtar also noted that the intervention of the IMF, the World Bank and the African Development Bank (AfDB) have helped in buoying the Nigerian economy.

Muhtar added that the three multilateral institutions contributed to the reforms in the financial sector and the ongoing efforts to navigate the country through the global financial crisis. He said the World Bank and the IMF provided technical and advisory support in the banking reforms.

“In the contest of the banking sector reforms, we have enjoyed IMF input along with the World Bank. The World Bank has also provided technical assistant support and advisory services. “So in essence, it is a question of sharing global best practices from across the globe in different forums and working with that to also provide advice and other capacity building support. “We do have, occasionally, some technical assistant and advisory teams that come to discuss with us and some have, on certain instances, been brought into the financial management and have been working for extended periods of time, ” he said.

The reports from the institutions, he said, helped in the additional work of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Ministry of Finance in shaping reforms in the financial sector. On the AfDB, Muhtar said the bank had re-invented itself in the last two years, with a higher priority in realizing measurable targets in the economies of African countries.

“The AfDB has done a great job, particularly in the last couple of years, in transforming itself as an institution that responds to the needs of African countries in terms of making its program more client-focus,” he said.
According to him, the transformation in the AfDB has impacted on its projects in Nigeria.

“We have seen considerable improvement in the implementation of projects, in relation to the designing of project and making them to respond to our needs and in relation to greater flexibility. Muhtar said the ministry had to restructure the Nigeria Trust Fund in the AfDB and sign a fresh agreement on the management of the fund. Nigeria’s fund of about 200 million dollars in the AfDB rose to 450 million dollars in about 30 years, but recently it had to withdraw 250 million dollars from the fund to supplement its dwindling revenue.

Nigerian Bank Nigeria CBN Central Bank Of Nigeria

Source Net News Publisher: 13th December 2009

Nigerian Finance Minister, Mansur Muhtar, has said a team from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) would meet in April next year to fast track the actualization of the proposed African Central Bank.

Muhtar told journalists that, “Nigeria is very happy to be championing the course and we are also happy that Nigeria has been selected as the location for the central bank’’.

“We signed the agreement with the understanding that Nigeria will host the headquarters and we also made a commitment to providing some resources to support this process and we have been taking stock,” he said.

At the home fron, Muhtar also noted that the intervention of the IMF, the World Bank and the African Development Bank (AfDB) have helped in buoying the Nigerian economy.

Muhtar added that the three multilateral institutions contributed to the reforms in the financial sector and the ongoing efforts to navigate the country through the global financial crisis.

He said the World Bank and the IMF provided technical and advisory support in the banking reforms.

“In the contest of the banking sector reforms, we have enjoyed IMF input along with the World Bank. The World Bank has also provided technical assistant support and advisory services.

“So in essence, it is a question of sharing global best practices from across the globe in different forums and working with that to also provide advice and other capacity building support.

“We do have, occasionally, some technical assistant and advisory teams that come to discuss with us and some have, on certain instances, been brought into the financial management and have been working for extended periods of time, ” he said.

The reports from the institutions, he said, helped in the additional work of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Ministry of Finance in shaping reforms in the financial sector.

On the AfDB, Muhtar said the bank had re-invented itself in the last two years, with a higher priority in realizing measurable targets in the economies of African countries.

“The AfDB has done a great job, particularly in the last couple of years, in transforming itself as an institution that responds to the needs of African countries in terms of making its program more client-focus,” he said.

According to him, the transformation in the AfDB has impacted on its projects in Nigeria.

“We have seen considerable improvement in the implementation of projects, in relation to the designing of project and making them to respond to our needs and in relation to greater flexibility.

Muhtar said the ministry had to restructure the Nigeria Trust Fund in the AfDB and sign a fresh agreement on the management of the fund.

Nigeria’s fund of about 200 million dollars in the AfDB rose to 450 million dollars in about 30 years, but recently it had to withdraw 250 million dollars from the fund to supplement its dwindling revenue.

Nigerian Bank Nigeria CBN Central Bank Of Nigeria, World Bank