The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Olayemi Cardoso, says $2.4 billion of the $7 billion foreign exchange backlog owed to banks, aviation and other entities is not valid.
Cardoso disclosed this in a recent interview with Arise Television.

He said the bank had cleared $2.3 billion out of the valid $4.5 billion FX backlog with just $2.2 billion outstanding.

“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,” he said.

Recall that the apex bank released $500 million to clear the forex backlog.

Similarly, the banker’s bank injected approximately $2 billion to settle outstanding commitments across the manufacturing, aviation and petroleum sectors.

Meanwhile, in December last year, the International Air Transport Association threatened to expel Nigeria over the $790 million trapped fund.

Recall that Naira appreciated marginally to close last Friday at N1,435.53 per Dollar after a turbulent week.