Forex: CBN To Meet With Suspended Bank Chiefs Again
Following pleas by the eight banks who were suspended over their failure to remit monies belonging to the NNPC/NLNG to the Treasury Single Account (TSA), the Central bank of Nigeria (CBN) will today, meet with the affected Bank Chiefs.
This is sequel to the meeting held last week, as the affected banks are seeking for more time to refund the $2.334 billion to the TSA.
Recall that nine banks last Tuesday were suspended from participating in the foreign exchange for failing to return $2.334 billion belonging to the NNPC/NLNG to the TSA, despite the federal government’s directive since August last year that all government deposits must be remitted to the account by September 15, 2015.
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The eight banks – First Bank of Nigeria (FirstBank) Limited, Diamond Bank Plc, Sterling Bank Plc, Skye Bank Plc, Fidelity Bank Plc, Keystone Bank Limited, First City Monument Bank (FCMB) Limited, and Heritage Bank Limited – were yet to remit a total of $1.804 billion NNPC/NLNG funds to the TSA as of Friday.
United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc, which complied last week by refunding $530 million to the TSA, has since been re-admitted into the FX market.
A top CBN official who confirmed this to newsmen, said that the central bank was considering the request by the CEOs of the affected banks after the meeting held with them last week following their suspension from the Forex market.
He, however, blamed the banks for failing to comply with the deadlines and repeated reminders given to them to refund the NNPC/NLNG dollar deposits since last year.
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The source said, “Following the federal government’s directive on the movement of all government funds to the TSA, the NNPC approached us last September to compel the banks to return its dollar deposits to the TSA.
“Based on this, we discovered $6 billion was held by all the banks and we agreed with them that 50 per cent of the amount should be paid by October last year, 25 per cent after 60 days and the outstanding 25 per cent after 30 days.
“However, after meeting the October deadline by paying $3 billion, the banks have since failed to meet the December and January deadlines and have only refunded an extra $900 million, leaving an outstanding balance of $2.1 billion. All entreaties that they should return the balance of about $2.1 billion have fallen on deaf ears, which was what led to the suspension of the nine banks last week.”
