And they also need to be held accountable for their efforts. Independence is the flip side of accountability; a central bank cannot be easily held to account if private and/or political actors have  1 Tucker, P. 2018. Unelected power. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Page 2 of 11  the ability to sway its decisions.
Nor can a transparent target be easily manipulated to show success when there is in fact none. Our mandate is implemented by targeting an inflation rate, which is interpreted not as literal price stability (an inflation rate of 0%) but as a low and stable growth rate in the price level.