We Disburse $80m Weekly For School Fees, BTAs, Says Emefiele

In view of the lingering foreign exchange scarcity in the country, the Central Bank of Nigeria has urged Nigerians not to panic, saying there is enough forex for business owners, travellers and parents with students abroad to meet their obligations.

CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, stated this on Tuesday at the 278th Monetary Policy Committee press briefing in Abuja.

He also said at least $80m were disbursed to banks on a weekly basis to enable Nigerians meet their forex responsibilities.

He, therefore, charged Nigerians to report any bank withholding forex to a special call centre of the apex bank.

Emefiele said, “Part of the measures that we have adopted is that on a weekly basis, the CBN disburses not less than $80m to the banks either for Personal Travel Allowances or payment of school fees.

“We have created a complaint desk where you can call us or call some of our people who will respond. It is like call centres, where people can call that they went to a particular bank and they didn’t get money to pay school fees or they didn’t get money to travel.”

Emefiele also said Nigeria had not changed from its foreign exchange management policies.

He said, “Nigeria has not changed from its foreign exchange management policies. Nigeria still remains on a managed float.

‘What does a managed float regime mean? That the Central Bank, which has a core mandate for foreign exchange management in the country, will run the market, see to how the market operates depending on its readings.

“It might interest us to know that since January, the CBN has not intervened in the I&E window. The market has always operated within a band of around N409 and at some point it attained N412, N413 and it began to move and that is the way it is supposed to go.

Emefiele also said the statement credited to the minister of finance that the country had moved into a flexible exchange rate was not true.