Sierra Leone Central Bank holds key rate at 23% on inflation
The Bank of Sierra Leone’s monetary policy committee left its key lending rate unchanged at 23% for the third straight month, citing concern over inflation in the West African nation.
“The committee underscored the need for the bank to continue to maintain a tight monetary policy stance in order to contain the second-round effects of imported inflation,” it wrote in a statement handed to reporters in Freetown, the capital, today.
The rate was last changed in May, a decrease of 300 basis points from 26 percent, according to Komba Senessie, an official at the bank. The reverse repo rate was set at 25 percent and the overnight rate at 30 percent, the bank’s statement showed.
Inflation accelerated for the fifth month in six in July to 16.82 percent from 16.79 percent in June, according to the statement.
The committee, which meets monthly, “recognized the growing significance of food-price shocks over non-food price movements” in consumer prices, it wrote.
The World Bank’s global food-price index for July rose 33 percent from a year earlier, the Washington-based lender said on Aug. 15.
By Silas Gbandia
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