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The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) said it has uncovered a sum of $2.4 billion out of the previously reported $7 billion foreign exchange (FX) backlog claims that were deemed invalid following a forensic audit.
CBN Governor, Olayemi Cardoso, made this disclosure during an interview with Arise Television on Monday.
Cardoso said the audit, conducted by Deloitte, revealed irregularities in the documentation and qualifications of entities claiming part of the backlog.
He stated that the apex bank identified issues with a significant portion of the claims and noted that these invalid claims were due to various irregularities, including missing import documents, non-existent entities, and inflated requests.
“We contracted Deloitte Management Consultant to do a forensic of all these obligations and to actually tell us what was valid and what was not. Of course, we were committed to ensuring that we would pay all valid transactions,” Cardoso said.
“The result that came out of this was startling in a great respect; it was quite startling. We discovered that of the roughly $7 billion, about $2.4 had issues, which we believed had no business being there – and the infractions from that range from so many things.
“For example, not having valid import documents and in some cases, even entities that did not exist and in some cases, beneficiaries and account parties that asked for FX and got more than they asked for. And those who didn’t even ask for any and got. So, there were a whole load of infractions there, which I said amounted to about $2.4 billion out of the $7 billion headline figure.”
The CBN governor added that the apex bank will not be paying [these invalid claims] because there were whole loads of infractions, noting that the bank’s commitment to settling only verified transactions.
The audit confirmed $4.6 billion in legitimate claims, of which $2.3 billion has already been cleared. The remaining $2.2 billion will be addressed “shortly,” according to Cardoso.
“We are not paying if you don’t qualify; they are not validly constituted requests. And of the validly constituted ones, we have settled about $2.3 billion and that applies to the airlines and a whole load of different entities spread throughout our economy – we’ve settled that already,
“And now what remains is about $2.2 billion to be settled and I am confident that we will shortly be addressing those and be able to move on and make progress.”
He noted that, in dealing with those that are not valid, the apex bank wrote to the authorised dealers to come in and explain what the situation was and where the numbers differed.
More details later.
