More than 30 per cent of Nigerians are not satisfied with the Central Bank of Nigeria’s management of interest rate.
CBN revealed this through it’s Q3 2020 Inflation Attitudes Survey Report released on the bank’s official website.
This survey, conducted by the Statistics Department of the bank, gathers views of Nigerians on the yearly changes in price of goods and services and future changes in order to explore Nigerians understanding of the nation’s monetary policy frame work.
The Q3 2020 Inflation Attitudes Survey was conducted during the period September 21-30,
2020 with a sample size of 2070 Households randomly selected from 207 Enumeration Areas
(EAs) across the country. The Q3 2020 survey had a response rate of 98.1 per cent.
The survey showed that 32.4 per cent of the respondents were totally unsatisfied with the bank’s management of interest rates in Nigeria.
The net satisfaction index was at -12.7 per cent. This is the proportion of the respondents satisfied less the proportion dissatisfied. “Among the respondents, 2.8 per cent were ‘very satisfied’, while 17.0 per cent were ‘fairly satisfied’. 15.4 per cent were ‘fairly dissatisfied’.
However, 20.0 per cent were ‘neither satisfied nor dissatisfied’ whereas 17.1 per cent were
‘very dissatisfied’. Those who had no opinion accounted for 27.8 per cent of the respondent”
This shows that there have been a steady increase in the percentage of Nigerians totally dissatisfied with CBN’s management of interest rest over the years.
According to the report Q3 2017, the net satisfaction index stood at 50.9 per cent, then was a sharp decrease to 18.6 per cent in Q4 2017 report. In the Q1 2018 report, it decreased again to 6.3 percent, to 2.7 (Q2 2018). It increased to 6.6 in Q3 2018 and then decreased again to 5.9 in Q4 2018. It moved 7.0 percent in Q1 2019 and maintained same 7.0 in Q2 2019. However, it decreased to 5.1 in Q3 2019, to 2.5 in Q4 2019. A little increase recorded as 3.6 in Q1 2020, and as at last quarters statistics, it stood at -9.0.
What does this mean?
This means that Nigerians are slowly but steadily losing trust in the techniques and policies employed by the CBN for interest rate management
Interest rate is an important instrument for monetary management in any economy. Interest rate management refers to the totality of steps and processes designed and used by the monetary authorities (CBN) to determine, sustain or support the level of interest rates in an economy in ways that engender the achievement of the stated macroeconomic goals of price and exchange rate stability, rapid and sustainable employment, and generating growth.
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