By Modupe Gbadeyanka
The reason behind the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)’s inability to meet foreign exchange demand of oil marketers in the country has been explained.
Addressing the House of Representatives ad-hoc committee on review of fuel price on Tuesday, the Deputy Governor of the CBN, Mrs Sarah Alade, pointed out that it is because of the continuous decline in Nigeria’s forex earning and receipts.
According to her, from 2013 to 2014, the CBN got between $2 billion and $3 billion monthly and sold about 30 percent of that at the inter-bank, saying about 70 percent of the money came from foreign investors.
She told the lawmakers that this has made the apex bank face serious difficulties in meeting up with the demands of the marketers.
However, she said, the CBN now gets between $600 million and $700 million with nothing coming from the inter-bank.
Mrs Alade, who represented Governor of the apex bank, Mr Godwin Emefiele, said in order to meet the huge demand for forex by oil importers, government must look at other ways.
Also speaking at the hearing, Minister of State for Petroleum, Mr Ibe Kachikwu, told the panel that the Federal Government was making an arrangement known as intervention scheme to ease the forex scarcity.
He said this would come in form of putting a stop to fuel importation by the year 2019 as foreign investors are currently collaborating with the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to make the country’s refineries fully functional before then.
