These are not the best of times for the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr. Godwin Emefiele as the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami (SAN), has issued him a query bordering on corruption allegations in the Central Bank of Nigeria’s foreign exchange allocation and transactions. The fraud allegations are said to be supported by several documents.
The minister is demanding Emefiele’s response to the allegations. The query letter reads: “Some of these petitions have been supported by several documents allegedly showing that the central bank has implemented a questionable policy in its allocation and sale of foreign currency to Nigerians.”
“It is further alleged that this arbitrary allotment of different exchange rates for same purposes at the same time is being pursued as policy by the Central Bank of Nigeria. See attached documents from Leadershipng publication. Also attached is a report of the October 2016, allocation of conflicting foreign exchange rates by the central bank.”
“In view of these allegations of corruption and arbitrary allocations of foreign exchange to a certain class of persons, you are kindly requested to comment on these allegations to enable us to advise the Presidency and take appropriate measures as may be dictated by the circumstances of the case.”
A document tiled ‘Bank utilisation report on 60:40 rule for October 2016’, which was attached to Malami’s letter sent to the CBN governor, had raised allegations of corruption and the implementation of questionable foreign exchange allocation policy. In October 2016, alone, as revealed by the document, no pattern or template could be deciphered to have been used in calculating the exchange rates.
The criteria used in selecting the firms or sectors for which certain volume of foreign exchange was allocated and at what rate could not be pinned to any template. The 1,312-page document revealed the names of various customers, their corresponding addresses, form numbers, amount allocated to them (in United States dollars), the items or purposes, the sector and the banks used for the month of October alone.
It shows how some companies and individuals got foreign exchange in US dollars at the rates as low as low as N0.61 to $1 while others got it in rates that were as high as N470 to $1. For instance, an individual got $4,327 at the rate of N23.34 to $1 through “credit card payment” for “invisible” purpose and under “invisible sector”.
A bank also got $3,589.11 at the rate of N3.19 to $1 also for “invisible” purposes and under “invisible” sector. There was a transaction involving sale of $66.72 at the rate of N0.62 to $1. There was also a sale of $5.56 to a company at the rate of N0.61 also for “invisible” purposes. A particular transaction also involved the sale of $570.8 at the rate N3.17. In contrast, there was a company, who purchased $1,462,480.83 at the rate of N425 to $1.
The document shows that individuals and companies got foreign exchange for purposes ranging from importation, PTA, school fees, “invisible”, family maintenance allowances, mortgage payments and medical travel among others