FOREX BAN: It’s Unfair To Misrepresent Buhari’s Directive – Emefiele
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, has said it is unfair to misrepresent President Muhammadu Buhari directive to halt provision of foreign exchange for food importation.
Emefiele, while speaking with journalists at the State House during a retreat for new ministers, noted the president’s speech has been largely misrepresented, describing the criticisms received as unfair and unfortunate.
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“What we will say from the CBN is that Mr President has made this comment purely to strengthen the position of the CBN, to say that he believes in what the CBN has been doing since 2016 and there is need for us to reinforce that going forward.
“If you recall, we started with about 41 items (food and non-food items), because we believe that those items can be produced in the country.
“As we stand today, there are about 43 items on that list and I will say substantially most of them are food items. We are basically saying if we have a food item that can be produced in the country, why should we waste scare foreign exchange importing those items into the country, when those can be produced in the country.”
Emefiele, however, stressed that the financial institution is aggressively going to add more items that can be produced in the country to the list of items that are going to be restricted from accessing foreign exchange in the Nigerian banking industry.
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“Because I have heard some comments that maybe it’s about the CBN’s source, it is not the CBN’s source, we are saying you will not be able to access foreign exchange from the Nigerian banking industry because it is important for us to produce these items in Nigeria and we will follow through on them.”
Recall that Buhari’s Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu quoted the president as ordering the apex bank not to provide “a cent to anybody to import food into the country.”
According to the statement, the directive followed the attainment of food security by the Buhari’s administration.
