The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), says it has cleared another $400 million of valid foreign exchange backlog to those who were genuinely identified.
CBN Governor, Olayemi Cardoso, disclosed this while presenting the communique at the MPC meeting which ended on Tuesday.
He assured that the CBN will work to restore the confidence of the public and remain committed to clearing the FX backlog to businesses being owed.
He stated, “In terms of the backlog, we are committed to clearing the backlog of identified and genuine requests that are pending. We are committed to doing that and I can tell you that just today, we paid out $0.4 billion to those that were identified, and we are committed to continuing doing so in one form or the other to those genuinely identified and proven cases.”
Cardoso while responding to questions from the media, said it was his conviction that the naira is undervalued largely because of “distortions” emanating from bad behaviour.
He said investigations were ongoing on the “distortions” and people found culpable would be brought to book.
The CBN governor further dismissed insinuations that he and his team were responsible for the current economic woes in the country.
He, however, said the CBN is taking the necessary steps to get the country’s fiscal and monetary health back to normal.
Cardoso pointed out that the current management of the CBN assumed responsibility at a time of crisis of confidence, adding that efforts being made to redress this are beginning to yield results.
“I laugh at that question but it’s not a laughing matter,” Cardoso retorted. “And I think it is very important for Nigerians to understand that the Central Bank Governor — I and my team — are not responsible for the woes that we have today; we are part of the solution.
“We are determined to ensure that we work hard to get out of the mess that Nigeria is in. We assumed responsibility in a time of crisis of confidence; there was a crisis of confidence and you may all want to go to bed and wish that crisis of confidence was not there but it was, and we can’t turn back the clock.
“All we can do is do the difficult things to make a bad situation better and I do believe that the efforts that we are making are beginning to bring back confidence because to be frank, without confidence in your business, you are not going to get far.”
