. Collaborates with relevant agencies on Binance
By Tochukwu Bliss, Abuja
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), said security operatives have been invited to investigate infractions arising from all unsatisfactory foreign exchange (FX) claims, saying it has cleared the backlog of all valid transactions.
CBN Governor, Olayemi Cardososo, disclosed this yesterday at the end of the apex bank’s 294th Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting in Abuja.
He said: “The law enforcement agencies are now looking at those transactions that as far as we are concerned, were not valid to be paid.”
According to him, the reputable audit firm engaged by the CBN declared that a number of these transactions did not qualify after a thorough assessment of the documents submitted for the claims.
Mr Cardoso continued: “I have said this before; in some cases you have allocations of millions of dollars which were never requested.
“You also had cases where there were requests but no Naira backing yet were allocated foreign exchange. And the list goes on. Those were some of the infractions. It was for those reasons that we refused to validate those transactions.
“Apart from the fact that documentation was not satisfactory, in many cases, they were outright illegal.
“I would emphasise that if there is any information to the contrary, we would in due course consider that. But as of today, that is exactly where we stand. The law enforcement agencies are taking a very hard look into those transactions.
“I have said it before and I will say it again, that the valid transactions, as far as the CBN is concerned, have been taken care of. We are also not unmindful that, just maybe, some stakeholders may have some backlog over a period of time or the other. We are not unmindful of that. Some may go back years over a period of time.
“We have done what we can to make the market open, transparent, and liquid as much as possible. So those particular stakeholders are free to access the market.”
Binance operations
On Binance, Mr Cardoso noted that although crypto regulation is the responsibility of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the CBN is still collaborating with security and other government agencies in handling the case.
He said:: “The responsibility for regulating crypto currency is not our own. It is strictly that of SEC.
”Let me clarify that the CBN collaborates with other government agencies. A month ago, we had collaboration with EFCC, security agencies, ONSA, SEC and we have been sharing information together.”
