With the exception of five banks, foreign exchange backlogs have been resolved, according to Olayemi Cardoso, Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria.
According to The PUNCH, Cardoso made this announcement on Thursday during an investor call that was organized by the Nigerian Exchange Group. He also promised to resolve the remaining foreign exchange backlogs at the banks in the coming days.
“Basically, what we did with those is that we paid as much as we could until we cleared the backlog of all the banks save five. With the exception of five, all banks’ legitimate and provable backlogs have been cleared.
“We are optimistic that soon we will be in a position to put the whole forwards problem behind us. We ought to be in a situation where the remaining five would have been behind us in a few days, in my opinion.
“I have made every effort to maintain consistency in this regard. I never make promises that I can’t keep. When I previously discussed this, I was optimistic that we would be have resolved in a month. I am repeating now that, as of right now, I believe this should be resolved in the course of the next several days, if not a week and a half, says the CBN governor.
The governor of the Apex bank also said that foreign portfolio inflows to Nigeria this year totaled $2 billion.
The National Bureau of Statistics reports that in 2023, foreign portfolio inflows of $3 billion were registered in Nigeria.
In an interview conducted at the beginning of February, Cardoso said that, among other transgressions, requests without import documentation accounted for around $2.4 billion of the $7 billion foreign exchange backlog he encountered upon taking office.
“We found that nearly $2.4 billion of the approximately $7 billion had problems. They had no business being there, in our opinion. The offences included a wide range of topics.
“Examples include not having legitimate import documentation, occasionally requesting foreign exchange but receiving more than requested and occasionally receiving money from businesses that did not exist. There were numerous violations present,” he remarked.
