ABUJA, Sept 26 (Reuters) - Nigeria's new central bank Governor Olayemi Cardoso said on Tuesday his top priority was to clear the bank's backlog of uns
ABUJA, Sept 26 (Reuters) – Nigeria’s new central bank
Governor Olayemi Cardoso said on Tuesday his top priority was to
clear the bank’s backlog of unsettled foreign exchange
obligations to local lenders, which he estimated could be as
high as $7 billion.
Cardoso, who was nominated by President Bola Tinubu, also
pledged to improve transparency, fix corporate governance issues
and restore diminished confidence in the autonomy and integrity
of the central bank.
Tinubu had promised a thorough house cleaning of monetary
policy at his inauguration in May after criticizing former
Governor Godwin Emefiele’s handling of the currency.
Cardoso said once the central bank has verified the extent
of its obligations, it will need to find a way to settle them
promptly.
“We need to promptly find a way to take care of that. It
would be naive for us to expect that we’ll be making too much
progress if we’re not able to handle that side of the foreign
exchange market,” he said.
Cardoso said at a Senate screening to confirm his nomination
that he will maintain price stability, revert to evidence-based
monetary policies and discontinue unorthodox monetary policies
used by his predecessor Emefiele to bolster the country’s naira
currency.
Cardoso, who began work on Sept. 22, takes office following
the resignation of Emefiele, who was suspended as central bank
chief by Tinubu in June and later detained by police and charged
with procurement fraud.
Cardoso’s comments come at a time when the naira has slumped
to a record low, reaching the psychologically sensitive 1,000
naira per dollar on the parallel market.
While the official exchange rate was quoted at 785 to the
dollar as of 1610 GMT, unmet forex demand on the official market
due to inadequate liquidity and speculation in street trading
has added downward pressure to the currency, widening the gap
with the official market where restrictions on trading were
lifted in June.
(Reporting by Elisha Bala-Gbogbo
Editing by Chris Reese)
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