Reporter; Tobi Adetunji
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Expert in Nigeria’s financial sector have attributed the recent debacle around the Foreign Exchange (Forex) market to the infractions under Godwin Emifele led administration of the Central Bank of Nigeria.
The Duo of Dr. Wunmi, a securities and Financial Regulation Law expert, and Tajudeen of Wyoming Capital and Partners bared their mind in a chat with Techeconomy on the recent unfolding in the Nigeria Apex Bank.
According to Dr. Wunmi Bewaji, described it as sad news that the snippets and other discoveries about the nation’s import regime, is riddle with false claims, and most of the so called backlog cannot be backed-up with documents, neither can it be verified and everybody knows this.
The Leeds Trained Scholar said, the discovery of the $2.4billion false claim by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is predicated on the forensic audit by Deloitte, which has not been disputed.
This means that the discovery is genuine; the implication of this is that, it confirms what everybody had insinuated all along that the import regime in Nigeria has been criminalized for a very long time, especially under the last CBN administration of Godwin Emefile, he said.
On Monday, Mr. Olayemi Cardoso, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), in an interview with ARISE NEWS, disclosed that the bank had settled verified FX requests, which amounted to $2.3 billion.
He said about $2.4 billion out of the reported $7 billion outstanding foreign exchange liabilities of the federal government are not valid for settlement.
According to him the current total outstanding FX obligations stood at $2.2 billion. Cardoso further indicated that part of the headline $7 billion outstanding FX claims were fraudulent, citing the outcome of a forensic audit by Deloitte Management Consultant, which was commissioned by the apex bank.
In swift reaction, Mr. Tajudeen Olayinka, said the current leadership of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) appears to be diligent in executing its core mandates and this portray a great saving and relief to official foreign reserves.
According to him, “The decision to invalidate $2.6billion FX backlogs from $7.6billion initial claims came from forensic audit, and the affected applicants couldn’t come up with evidence to counter the audit position, it means the current leadership and management of CBN is prepared to be diligent in executing their core mandates.
“This is a great saving and relief to official foreign reserves. It also means that CBN will be able to address the liquidity challenge in the foreign exchange market early enough.
“I think we should thank Cardoso and his team for being steadfast in this respect. A lot of unthinkable things happened under Godwin Emefiele leadership. The foreign investors will now begin to develop confidence in our markets. It is a confidence booster.
Earlier, the International Air Transport Association lauded the CBN for the latest payment of part of the trapped funds but stressed that over $700m was still trapped in the country.
While describing the $64.44m disbursement as a welcome development, IATA maintained that approximately $700m was still unpaid.
While underscoring the importance of the need for the Apex Bank to lead by examples, Wunmi said, the Central Bank of Nigeria should publish necessary documents which it has not published for over 7years.
He was however quick to remind CBN to bring the instrument of the law to bear on the victims of spurious claims to deter subsequent violation.
He said “of great importance is the place of continuous disclosure in corporate governance. There is a reason why the law made the space for the annual audit of corporate governance and you know for a very long time the CBN has failed to publish its books.
“So this should never happen again, for almost 7 to 9 years, the CBN was never audited. So an organisation like the CBN that should lead by the example is the one that violating the law for that length of time. So going forward, we should as a matter of Policy, make it mandatory, of course it is required by the law. The CBN should lead by example and ought to publish its audit annually. This will save us from this sort of problems in the future
“This issue should not be treated in the CBN business as usual manner. This is fraud we are talking about. Crime has been committed as a result and I will say that people that made these false claims ought to be prosecuted and made to face the full wrath of the law so as to discourage such kind of criminal conduct in the future. The people involved in this making of false claims ought to be prosecuted and the full weight of the law ought to be brought upon them
“I should also add that, this discovery also revealed to us that the pressure on the Naira is artificial. It’s nothing but false pressure. What this means is that the Naira is grossly undervalued.
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