Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, on Monday said more items and transactions would soon be declared not valid for foreign exchange (forex) from government institutions.
He also said importers of those items would not just be denied access to foreign exchange from CBN window alone but also from the Nigerian banking industry.
The CBN had in 2016 places ban on 41 items that are not eligible for foreign exchange.
Emefiele, said this while fielding questions from journalists, shortly before the commencement of the presidential retreat for ministers-designate, federal permanent secretaries and top government functionaries, at the State House Conference Center, Abuja.
President Muhammadu Buhari had on Tuesday in Daura, Katsina State, directed CBN to stop providing forex for importation of food into the country.
On how far he has gone with the implementation of the directive, the CBN governor said:
“Let me say this, Mr. President’s comment on the issuance of forex to people who import food items is in the logic of CBN’s management of foreign exchange policies that we started since 2016.
“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.
“It is important for me to say that, the attempt to misrepresent the comments of Mr. President is very unfair and unfortunate. But, 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.
“I will say that, to be honest, we would aggressively go more into the list of items that are being imported into the country, items that can be produced in Nigeria.
“I will like to stress that we would ensure that more of these items will get on the list of items that are going to be restricted from accessing foreign exchange in Nigerian banking industry, not just from the CBN source. 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.”
Asked if there will be no amendment to the policy, the CBN governor said: “There will never be an amendment because the issue is this, why should we be exporting jobs to other countries?