THE Central Bank of Nigeria has commenced a re-validation exercise to ascertain complaints of manufacturers and importers over foreign exchange claims worth $2.4bn.
The CBN Governor, Olayemi Cardoso, disclosed this while speaking to the business community at a special summit dinner organised by the Nigerian Economic Summit Group, on Tuesday night in Abuja.
He said the bank has finalised its first stage of verification and is currently going through a second stage to authenticate claims by manufacturers.
This new development comes eight months after the apex bank claimed to have cleared fx forwards worth $7bn, effectively eliminating a legacy burden.
But the real sector under the auspices of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria complained of the apex bank’s failure to clear unredeemed FX forward contracts incurred under the administration of the former governor, Godwin Emefiele.
The association in August said the continued failure to resolve the issues was piling pressure on industries, causing them to declare huge losses.
The MAN DG, Segun Kadir said, “There is still the issue of the unsettled $2.4bn FX Forwards contract that the CBN, for inexplicable reasons, is still holding.
“Most of our big industries are declaring losses and some of these losses are traceable to this issue of not honouring FX Forwards contracts.”
Although Cardoso at several fora had maintained that the bank had cleared all claims, the new announcement of cross-checking the claims was received with a round of applause from seated guests.
He said, “Our view is focused on managing inflation, and focus on stabilising prices, focus on foreign exchange management.
“In respect to the forwards, You know, at the time I spoke about this when I was going for my clearance at the Senate. All I knew was that there was a huge backlog, and there seemed to be a problem with the finances of the central bank.
“It was very clear to me that it was something that needed to be tackled immediately. And when I say it needed to be tackled, it’s giving confidence to international investors and others that as a central bank, we would meet our obligations. It was important to do so.
“We went through the process of verifying the claims, and we began to have a better understanding of the claims and the appropriateness of the claims.
“I know that as of now, there are still some which have been unverified. We are working on those. We are at a particular stage now where we have gone through stage one, and we are back to stage two to verify those claims as it is now.
“But more important and very important, we had to ensure that we could walk the talk because that clearly and truly is the way to build credibility. No point in saying you do one thing and not do it. You have to be transparent in the way you undertake your operations.”
