The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Yemi Cardoso, has revealed that law enforcement agencies have begun an investigation into the $2.4 billion worth of unauthorized foreign exchange (FX) transactions.
Cardoso made this disclosure while addressing the media during the 294th meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) in Abuja on Tuesday.
Cardoso said that the law enforcement authorities are focused on several transactions that did not adhere to the regulatory standards laid down by the CBN for foreign exchange allocations.
The CBN governor also spoke about various irregularities, such as the disbursement of large sums of FX for requests that were never submitted and allocations which were made without the necessary naira backing.
He highlighted the absence of legal validity and adequate documentation in these transactions during the second MPC meeting of his tenure as CBN governor.
Cardoso emphasized the gravity of these irregularities, calling the numerous foreign exchange transactions under investigation as “clearly unlawful.”
“We determine that a number of these transactions did not qualify. In some cases, we have some allocations made in millions of dollars, which were never requested for,” Cardoso said.
“We also had somewhere they had no naira and they were also allocated some foreign exchange.
“It was for that reason that we refused to validate those particular transactions. Apart from the fact that documentation was not satisfactory, in many cases, they were outright illegal.
“The law enforcement agencies are now looking into those transactions that as far as we are concerned, are not valid to be paid.”
