Over the weekend Nairametrics reported that the CBN had reached a tie in its decision to either increase MPR or hold in the MPC meeting held on July 26 2016.
According to personal statements released on Friday, 4 members of the MPC had voted for a rate hike and another 4 voted to hold. This was in contrast to the MPC communique which reported a 5-3 vote in favour of a policy hike.
This created a confusion for analysts who pondered on what may have happened.
Reading through the statements we observed that CBN Deputy Governor Adelabu Adebayo, had voted for a rate freeze. However, reading more carefully we observed that his statements were not in line with recent market information and events.
As can be seen from the excerpt above, his remarks appears to have been lifted from an MPC statement probably written sometime in 2013. Someone in the CBN may have erroneously lifted the statement and pasted it as if that was his most recent comment.
This explains why It appeared we had a tie of 4-4 in the actual vote count, whereas the actual results were 5-3 whem the communique was published.
The apparent goof will not go down well with analysts who have rained down criticisms at the CBN for its poor handling of the economy. This also places prior MPC statements under scrutiny due to a trust related issues.
The MPC is read by hundreds of analysts around the world as they rely on it to gauge the mind of policy makers.
