Foreign exchange regime not to favour special interests, says CBN

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) says the sale of foreign exchange (FX) under the new policy is transparent and not intended to benefit any individual or corporate body.
Acting Director of Corporate Communications, CBN, Mr Isaac Okorafor in Abuja on Sunday, insisted that its FX policies were not meant to favour special interests.
According to Okorafor, the apex bank has to make the clarification following allegations of irregularities in the rates at which foreign exchange is obtained by some individuals and companies from different banks.
“We wish to reiterate that the Central Bank of Nigeria neither allocates foreign exchange nor does it deal directly with bank customers.
“The CBN does not fix FX rates for transactions by individuals or companies.
“In line with our principle of transparency, we directed Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) to forward to us evidence of FX sales to end users and to advertise same in national dailies.
“Since the introduction of the new FX Policy in 2016, we have published monthly, the evidence of sales from DMBs, as received from the banks and without any alteration by us in the spirit of transparency.
“As the constitutionally authorised industry regulator mandated to manage the forex market, we wish to state unequivocally that the CBN has a duty to perform and would not indulge in acts capable of discrediting the FX market’’, Okorafor said.
He said the CBN recently observed, however, that some banks forwarded inaccurate data which was erroneously published and gave a wrong impression of disparate rates.
He said the banks involved had been issued queries accordingly.
According to him, some of the banks have returned a response indicating that some of the figures are related to formatting errors which do not affect the true rates of the affected transactions.
It will be recalled that in June 2016, the CBN unveiled new guidelines in the management of FX which were being determined by the market.
Under the new regime, FX is allocated on a 60:40 ratio, prioritising FX sales to manufacturers, agriculture, plant and machinery and critical raw materials.