The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, has promised to sustain the tempo in the foreign exchange, forex, by constantly making dollars available to genuine users in the country under the new wholesale intervention scheme. In line with its promise to ease the difficulties encountered by Nigerians in obtaining funds for Foreign Exchange transactions, the CBN has in the last one week carried out wholesale interventions in the interbank FOREX market by providing over $500 million to meet the requests of customers. The development strengthened the price of the naira by about 60 per cent within a week.
Asked if the Central Bank will be able to sustain the current tempo of dollar supply to the market, Isaac Okorafor, acting director of communications, CBN, said what the CBN has done to change the tide is a simply observation, planning and implementation. “We will sustain it. It is not a gimmick,” Okoroafor said while responding to questions today at the ongoing CBN organised seminar for finance correspondents and business editors in Sokoto State.
Okoroafor debunked the allegation that the apex bank was allocating dollars to its staff and people close to the institution. “It is not true. The CBN cannot allocate dollars to an individual,” he said, adding that Nigeria only needs to walk its way out of the current economic crisis by diversifying the economy to encourage export and inflow of the dollars.