The Monetary Policy Committee of the Central Bank of Nigeria has increased the benchmark lending rate to 26.75 per cent from 26.25 per cent in May.
The CBN governor, Olayemi Cardoso, made the increase of the Monetary Policy Rate known on Tuesday at the end of the 296th MPC meeting in Abuja.
The MPC has been aggressive in their bid to arrest inflation since it resumed meeting this year and thus far, it has hiked rate by more than 500 points.
Despite, inflation defied all the committee’s steps to tame it moving to 34.19 per cent in June, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, with the headline inflation increased by 0.24 per cent relative to the May 2024 headline inflation rate which was 33.95 per cent.
On a year-on-year basis, the headline inflation rate was 11.40 per cent points higher than that of June 2023 (22.79 per cent).
Also, on a month-on-month basis, the headline inflation rate in June 2024 was 2.31 per cent, which was 0.17 per cent higher than the rate recorded in May 2024 (2.14 per cent) meaning that the rate of increase in the average price level was higher in June than in May.
Repeatedly, the CBN governor has maintained that the MPC members were committed to price stability and were willing to keep tightening until inflation is tamed.
