The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr. Olayemi Cardoso, announced that the remaining FX backlogs of the bank will be cleared within the next week and a half.
This statement was made during a Foreign Portfolio Investor call organized by the Nigerian Exchange Group (NGX) with the CBN team. The Governor emphasized that recent reforms were implemented to address distortions in the foreign exchange market.
When asked about the current size of the FX backlogs and the steps being taken to clear them, the Governor mentioned that the CBN has already cleared its FX backlog in all banks except for five, which will also be resolved in the coming days.
He stated, “Basically what we have done with those is we have paid as much as we can to the point where we have cleared the backlog of all the banks save five. All the bank’s genuine and verifiable backlogs have been cleared save five.”
“We are confident that we will shortly be in a position where the whole issue of forwards would be behind us. I would say in the next few days we should be in a position where the balance of the five would have been put behind us.”
“I have tried as much as possible to be consistent on this matter. I don’t make promises I don’t fulfil. The last time I spoke on this matter, I was confident that within one month, we would be more or less out of it and I’m saying again that right now I think in the course of the next few days maybe a week and a half, this should be put behind us.”
The Governor of the CBN has made clearing the FX backlog a top priority, as he emphasized during his confirmation hearing at the senate. Over the past few months, the bank has successfully cleared a significant portion of its FX backlog, fulfilling the Governor’s promise.
At a press briefing following the first MPC meeting of the bank, Mr. Yemi Cardoso announced that the bank had cleared an additional $400 million of its FX backlog. Based on estimates from the publicized clearance, the remaining backlog is now around $1.8 billion.
