523. The governance reforms were anchored on the tenets of transparency, accountability and anticorruption, including the due process mechanism, to complement the fiscal reforms. Other complementary measures include the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), transparent oversight of public expenditure, restructuring the public sector, and establishing the anticorruption agencies EFCC and ICPC. Monetary policy reforms 524. Monetary policy has largely been anchored on maintaining price stability. Several measures have also been taken to strengthen the financial sector in order to improve financial intermediation and its linkages with the real sector. Monetary authorities currently implement active and transparent interest rate and exchange rate policies aimed at strengthening the resilience of the financial system to domestic and external shocks. 525. The focus is on regulating the value, supply and cost of money so that they are consistent with the expected level of economic activity. This will enable money supply to grow at an appropriate rate to support sustainable economic growth and maintain internal and external balances. 526. The CRM discussions revealed that the CBN has applied both direct and indirect instruments of monetary policy with varying degrees of success over time. Direct instruments include managing interest rates, regulating bank credit, statutory liquidity requirements, directed credits and rediscount windows. The emphasis in recent years has, however, been on indirect instruments, consistent with global trends. Structural reforms 527. The range of policies includes liberalising, deregulating and privatising key sectors of the economy. The objective of these reforms has, since 2003, been to ensure that the private sector remains the driver of economic activity. Several laws have been passed. They are designed to deregulate and govern key sectors like telecommunications, electricity and private-public partnerships in developing infrastructure. Liberalising the telecommunications sector is an example. It boosted investment in the sector (with over US$1 billion per year invested since 2003) and improved telecommunications services. The number of Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) lines increased from fewer than 500,000 to more than 30 million since 2001. Overall macroeconomic picture 528. The CRM findings agree largely with the CSAR’s view that Nigeria’s recent fiscal reforms have contributed to macroeconomic stability, and that government’s fiscal operations are becoming more transparent than they were in the past. Some notable achievements in the past two years are as follows (illustrated in figure 4.1): 161

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