Emefiele Named ‘Public Sector Icon of the Year’
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor has been named the ‘Public Sector Icon of the Year’ by Vanguard Newspapers.
The CBN Governor was honoured alongside other eminent personalities at the Vanguard Personality of the Year Awards 2019, 2020, held in Lagos at the weekend.
In his citation, the organisers of the awards noted that in the course of Emefiele’s tenure as governor, the central bank has introduced critical interventions such as the Nigeria Electricity Market Stabilisation Facility, the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading-Payment Assurance Facility, the Presidential Fertiliser Initiative, and the Shared Agent Network Expansion Facility, to directly support enterprises with huge potential for job creation, conservation of foreign exchange, import substitution as well as ensure financial system stability.
“When he assumed office as the tenth indigenous Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, in June 2014, the CBN, under Emefiele’s leadership, has had to come up with new strategies to navigate the Nigerian economy through hurdles such as the challenge of foreign exchange inflow, the exchange rate, the economic recession, stagflation, financial inclusion and the gap in the value chains of majority of crops in Nigeria.
“With the advent of the coronavirus came global health and economic challenges, which Nigeria was not immune from.
“However, like every other proactive central bank in the world, the CBN stood up to be counted. Some of the measures taken by the Emefiele-led team to mitigate the adverse impact of the pandemic on households and businesses were: Mobilisation of key stakeholders in the Nigerian economy through the CACOVID alliance, which led to the provision of over N27 billion in relief materials to affected households, and the set-up of 39 isolation centers across the country, the creation of N100 billion Target Credit Facility, for affected households and small and medium enterprises through the NIRSAL Microfinance Bank, among others,” the newspaper added.