The Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA) has expressed concern over the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) continued reliance on monetary policy tightening following the committee’s decision to retain the Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) at 27.50 per cent.

While the association called for complementary fiscal measures to alleviate business hardship and spur growth, it said monetary tightening, in isolation from other critical considerations, could not deliver the comprehensive economic stability the country urgently needs.

Director-General of NECA, Adewale-Smatt Oyerinde, said there is an urgent need to address the contradictions in the economy that continue to manifest in the huge profits in the financial sector while the real sector continues to grapple under the weight of low margins.

He argued that in as much as the decision to retain the MPR, CRR and other policy instruments highlighted the CBN’s intention to control inflation, businesses continued to suffer under the weight of exorbitant borrowing costs.

This, he said, is even when other economies are progressively reducing the cost of borrowing to stimulate growth, high exchange rates, weak consumer demand, and strangulating the regulatory environment.

According to him, while headline inflation figures offer a glimmer of hope, they mask the more deep-rooted structural challenges facing the Nigerian economy.

The NECA boss noted that the marginal drop in inflation must not obscure the deeper structural constraints, particularly in food production and energy supply.

The cost of doing business, he stressed, remained alarmingly high, and without urgent reforms, the productive sector would continue to struggle. Oyerinde reiterated the urgent need for a coordinated policy response that goes beyond rate adjustments.

Strategic fiscal interventions, such as increased investments in transport infrastructure, power supply, and agricultural value chains, he said, would reduce production costs and ease inflationary pressures from the supply side.

He further stressed that the government must act decisively to secure farming communities, improve access to quality agricultural inputs and mechanisation, and address logistics bottlenecks.These steps, he maintained, are essential to improve supply-side resilience and unlocking productivity.