Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Olayemi Cardoso has said the Nigeria’s outstanding foreign exchange backlog owed across economic sectors has dropped to $2.2 billion.
He disclosed this during an interview on Arise Television.
According to Cardoso, the apex bank had reduced the $7 billion FX backlog it inherited to $2.2 billion and vowed it was working to clear the outstanding balance.
“You can imagine that having $2.2 billion outstanding and $7 billion are not the same thing. We will clear all that is remaining very shortly,” Cardoso said in the interview.
He also disclosed that out of the $7 billion FX backlog, a Deloitte audit found that $2.4 billion of the unmet demand was invalid. This brought down the valid FX backlog to $4.5 billion.
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He explained: “The result that came out of this was startling in a great respect; it was quite startling. We discovered that of the roughly $7 billion, about $2.4 had issues, which we believed had no business being there and the infractions from that range from so many things.
“For example, not having valid import documents and, in some cases, even entities that did not exist and, in some cases, beneficiaries and account parties that asked for FX and got more than they asked for.
“And those who didn’t even ask for any and got. So, there were a whole load of infractions there, which I said amounted to about $2.4 billion out of the $7 billion headline figure.”
With the invalid $2.4 billion out of the way, the outstanding forex backlog dropped to $4.5 billion.
The apex bank has now cleared $2.3 billion out of the valid $4.5 billion FX backlog, with just $2.2 billion outstanding.
Cardoso said: “And now what remains is about $2.2 billion to be settled, and I am confident that we will shortly be addressing those and be able to move on and make progress.
“Yes, as I said, I think that would be what would be done very shortly. Now, you can imagine that $2.2 billion outstanding and $7 billion outstanding are not the same.”
