From Uche Usim and Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
The Central Bank of Nigeria CBN, on Monday, assured anxious bank customers there is sufficient foreign exchange to meet their needs for basic travel allowance, PTA, medical and tuition.
The assurance came as the bank also said that all Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) were being monitored to ensure policy compliance and guarantee that legitimate forex demands of customers are met swiftly upon tendering necessary documents.
It however dismissed speculations about plans to convert the foreign exchange in domiciliary accounts of customers into naira.
Speaking with business correspondents in Abuja on Monday, the CBN Acting Director in charge of Corporate Communications, Osita Nwanisobi, disclosed that the bank had since extracted the commitment of the DMBs, through their Chief Executive Officers, that customers with legitimate requests will not be turned back.
Meanwhile, Nwanisobi dismissed insinuations in some quarters that the banking industry regulatorhad planned to convert the foreign exchange in the domiciliary accounts of customers into Naira to check a purported shortage of the United States dollars.
Nwanisobi, while disclosing that the CBN never planned to tamper with the foreign exchange deposits in the accounts of customers, insisted that those making such allegations were criminal speculators whose intention was to create panic in the foreign exchange market.
According to him, at no time did the CBN ever suggested or implied that it would tinker with the foreign exchange deposits of customers. He therefore urged operators of domiciliary accounts and the banking public to go about their legitimate foreign exchange transactions and disregard fictitious stories aimed at pitching them against the bank and triggering chaos in the system.