Following media reports alleging irregularities in the [60:40] Foreign Exchange Policy, the Central Bank of Nigeria(CBN) has said that it neither allocates foreign exchange nor deal directly with bank customers.
Ag. Director, Corporate Communications, Isaac Okoroafor who disclosed this, stressed that the CBN does not fix FOREX rates for transactions by individuals or companies.
According to him; “In line with our principle of transparency, we directed DMBs to forward to us evidence of FOREX sale to end users and to advertise same in national dailies.
“Since the introduction of the new FOREX Policy in 2016, we have published, monthly, the evidence of sale from DMBs, as received from the banks and without any alteration by us in the spirit of transparency. We have recently observed, however, that some DMBs forwarded inaccurate data, which were erroneously published and gave a wrong impression of disparate rates” he said.
Okoroafor also noted that the DMBs involved in providing inaccurate data have since been issued queries accordingly, adding that some have returned a response indicating that some of the figures were related to formatting errors, which do not affect the true rates of the affected transactions.
He stated that; “As the constitutionally authorized industry regulator mandated to manage the FOREX market, maintain external reserves and to safeguard the international value of the legal tender currency, we wish to state unequivocally that the CBN has a duty to perform and would not indulge in acts capable of discrediting the FOREX market”.
While reiterating that the sale of FOREX under the new policy is most transparent and is not intended to benefit any individual or corporate body in anyway, he appreciated the concerns of stakeholders and urged all concerned to verify information on matters relating to the Bank and use CBN available channels to lodge their complaints.
