Lagos, July 12, 2024 – Olayemi Cardoso, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), said he cleared the $7.5 billion foreign exchange backlog to restore confidence in the Nigerian economy.
Olayemi Cardoso, the CBN Governor, said this in Lagos on Thursday while speaking at the BusinessDay CEO Forum 2024.
He said he insisted on clearing the backlog in spite of the advice from many people against doing so.
“People thought, there was no need to prioritise the forex backlog clearance,” he said, “but they failed to realise that the country was in a state of crisis, and loss of confidence.”
“Even without that, it is important, that you hold high your integrity. As a bank, your yes, must be yes, that is a big major step in building credibility. It is very tempting to push that aside, but ultimately, I was convinced that if we did not do that at that time, we would pay the price as a country.”
Cardozo said his decision had improved the country’s image, adding that foreign investors and multilateral organisations saw the move as a bold intervention to improve the economy’s sustainability in the long run.
Cardoso said the CBN should not be held for the rising interest rate and the impact on economic growth since CBN was not responsible for fixing the Monetary Policy Rate (MPR)
According to him, the interest rate is not set by the CBN, but the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) which comprises of independent minded thinking people.
“The MPC members are people who are not given to emotion, but data. They go along with what the data say. The MPC has said their major target is to rein in inflation.
“We were all there when a lot of money got into the system. We saw the Ways and Means went into N27 trillion. We saw intervention funds stood at N10.5 trillion. These policies have their consequences,” he said. (GBN)
