—-Back discovery with investigation immediately—Unegbu
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has again uncovered $2.4 billion invalid foreign exchange (forex) claims filed by “ghosts” and their phantom companies.
The CBN Governor, Yemi Cardoso, dropped this bombshell on Monday in an interview with Arise Television.
According to him, the apex bank uncovered $2.4 billion in invalid forex outstanding claims, which are squeezing the naira and causing anxiety in the currency market. He explained that this was discovered during an audit by the CBN’s consultant, which disclosed a number of suspicious transactions.
Cardoso stated that the apex bank commissioned Deloitte to look into the forex allegations to provide a true picture of the situation.
Cardoso said, according to the Deloitte assessment, up to $2.4 billion of the backlog consists of fictitious claims, with claimants in certain cases being unable to provide import documentation.
His words:
“We had had reasons to believe we needed to take a harder look at these obligations. So we contracted Deloitte management consultants to do a forensics of all these obligations and to actually tell us what was valid and what was not.
“The result that came out of this was startling in a great respect. It was startling. We discovered that of the roughly $7 billion, about $2.4 billion had issues, which we believe had no business being there and the infractions on that ranged from so many things, for example not having valid import documents and in some cases entities that do not exist,” he said.
Speaking with Daily Champion Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Maxifund Investment & Securities Ltd, Mazi Okechukwu Unegbu commended the CBN for uncovering $2.4 billion invalid foreign exchange (forex) claims filed by “ghosts” and their phantom companies.
He urged the apex bank to immediately commence investigation, adding that the present CBN governor may mean well for the nation, but must be given a free hand to work.
According to him, the investigation is important so that Nigerians will know the politicians and staff of the CBN that are involved in this invalid forex claims.
