ABUJA
– The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has described as unfounded and
untrue allegations by BusinessDay that some faceless agents and
officials of the apex bank are involved in foreign exchange
racketeering.
In a statement issued on Monday’s, Isaac Okorafor,
CBN director of Corporate communications, threw a challenge to
BusinessDay, urging it to “provide the names and also verifiable
evidence of collusion between these faceless agents and officials of the
CBN, who are working to perpetuate these so called Fx racket schemes.”
The CBN, which was reacting to the front page headline story in the BusinessDay newspaper of Monday, February 4, 2019 titled: “Exposed: The Sleazy Face of N306/$, inside Nigeria’s racket where faceless agents pocket over N32bn annually,” said there was no truth in the report.
The bank asked the management of BusinessDay to contact the CBN prior to making such spurious allegations, as the bank was denied the benefit of responding to the story before it was published.
The bank reminded BusinessDay that “as most financial observers have noted, that the Fx rates across various markets governed and regulated by the CBN, have been converging, leaving no room for arbitrage opportunities in Nigeria’s Fx market.
“For avoidance of doubt, the CBN will continue to act in the best interest of Nigeria and shall ensure it remains focused on its core mandate of sustaining the stability in the FX market.”