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By Adewale Sanyaolu
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has warned foreign investors engaging in business transactions without Certificate of Capital Importation that they risk being sanction for illegal activities.
The CBN Deputy Governor in charge of Financial System Stability, Mr.Phillip Ikeazor, stated this at the Nordic Nigeria Connect(NNC) 2023 with the theme ‘‘ Innovation for a Greener Future’’. The NNC 2023 is a progarmme organised by the Embassies of Denmark, Finland,Norway and Sweden which aims to engage the Nigerian and Nordic private and public stakeholders on issues relating to circular economy, innovation, sustainable technology and the green transition.
Ikeazor who was represented by the Deputy Director and Coordinating Banking Supervision, Mr. Adedeji Adetona, said while the CBN was not against the promotion of Foreign Direct Investment(FDI), all funds brought into the country must have Certificate of Capital Importation.
He said the CBN frowns at a situation where foreign exchange brought into the country by investors come in through the ‘backdoor’ or unapproved means.
The CBN deputy governor said such funds that do not pass the banking system could not in any way be tracked because they have no record within the Nigerian banking system.
He added that the promoters of such businesses having brought in funds without traceability on many occasion would want to try to repatriate such through the banking system, a development that leaves most of them disappointed.
‘‘Let me state it emphatically that no Nigerian bank would repatriate such funds for investor because they do not have record. Any bank that tries to do such would be sanctioned and be made to face the full wrath of the law,’’
What these set of people try to do is that, when they bring in foreign exchange through unapproved means, they have it to parallel market and exchange if for a premium use it for their business and now want to repatriate same through the banking system because that is a criminal and won’t be allowed.
On the lingering foreign exchange crisis, Ikeazor assured that the challenge would soon be a thing of the past as the CBN was doing all it can to clear all forex backlog in a bid to bring about stability in the system.
As part of efforts to bring stability into the forex market, he said the CBN last week cleared over $1 billion out of the $6.7 billion that was outstanding, adding that another batch of backlog would be cleared anytime soon.
He explained that such effort would engender liquidity and confidence in the Nigerian financial system and also boost promotion of business, especially for those who have Letters of Credit to submit to their correspondence bank.
According to him, another taken by the CBN to bolster confidence in the unification of the exchange rate which hitherto operated multiple rates to the worry of stakeholders alongside the promotion of a willing buyer, willing seller regime to take away activities of speculators in the market.
When reminded that the exchange rate unification seems not to be achieving much as parallel market rates are now far above the official exchange rate, Ikeazor said as soon as the backlog of forex have been cleared by the CBN, rates would begin to converge again
He warned speculators who are stock piling foreign exchange to desist from the act, saying in no distant time, they would get their fingers burnt.
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