The central bank of Nigeria stated that the
recent appreciation of Naira against the Dolar was the result of intervention
and market monitoring by the CBN.
The acting director of cooperate communication
CBN , Mr Isaac Okorafor in sokoto clarifies the allegations by Mr Babatunde
Gbadamosi on the illegal sales of foreign currencies at ridiculous rates was
responsible for the change in forex policy.
The Lagos Businessman Babatunde Gbadamosi,
also former governorship candidate made the allegations of racketeering against
the CBN and favoritism in allocation of foreign exchange to cronies of the
present administration.
The Central bank of Nigeria later clarifies
the issue that the transactions in question were third party transactions like
Japanese Yen to the South African Rand, or Euros to U.S Dollars.
The
CBN later went supplementary to direct banks to file returns on the sale of
foreign currencies in dollars to avoid ambiguities and misinterpretations in
future.
Mr Okofor disclosed that the appreciation of
Naira has no way connected to the allegations of Babatunde.
“I want to state categorically that there is
no relationship whatsoever between the allegations by the so called person that
dollar was being sold at 61 kobo and the current appreciation of the Naira.
“What led to the appreciation of the Naira
includes the following:
“The CBN has done its intelligence work on
the market and we came to the realisation that much of what was driving the
demand on the BDCs and parallel market was speculation.
“We reasoned that since there is a lot of
pressure on the two segments from people seeking to buy foreign currencies for
BTA, tuition and medical, that if we successfully address that, the pressure
will come down.
“Also, before now, the level of our reserves
was not enough to make us comfortable to really do the kind of intervention
that is required.
“We decided to do so now because we are a bit
more comfortable with our level of reserve,” he said.
Okorafor said that since the new forex
policy, the CBN had intervened with about 591 million dollars in the market
which had led to Naira gaining strength.
“Let me also state as proof that when we
placed 500 million dollars in the market only 370 million dollars was taken.
“That tells you that the real demand is $370
million. When we placed 230 million in the market, only $221 million was taken.
“Anybody who has run foul of the law and the
security agencies have caught up with him, should go and face his or her case
and stop causing confusion amongst participants in the market,” he said.
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