CBN Clears Foreign Airlines FX Backlogs With Additional $64.44 Million

The Central Bank of Nigeria recently announced that it has successfully cleared the backlog of foreign exchange owed by foreign airlines. The apex bank said it has successfully removed all verified claims by airlines with an additional $64.44 million to the concerned airlines.

Mrs Hakama Ali, the CBN's Acting Director of Corporate Communications, announced this. She stated that the recent debt cleared has brought the total verified amount paid to the sector to $136.73 million. According to her statement on Tuesday, all confirmed airline claims are now being cleared.

However, a report from Kingsley Nwokoma, the president of the Association of Foreign Airlines and Representatives in Nigeria, reveals that the CBN has cleared a total of $125 million out of the $800 million foreign airlines funds that are being trapped.

Concerning the development, Mrs Ali said that the Apex bank governor and his team are dedicated to seeing that all verified backlogs of payments across all other sectors are cleared and returning confidence to the Nigerian FX market.

She also stated that the CBN is working alongside stakeholders to return liquidity within the forex market, thereby reducing pressure on the Naira.

She stated her hopes that the latest injection of $64 million will address the dollar crisis in the market. Also, she warned speculators in the foreign exchange market, stating that their actions would cause the effect of the CBN to be void.

Mrs Ali also encouraged the public to support the reforms in the foreign exchange market as the CBN will keep up with promoting orderliness and professional conduct by all Nigerian Foreign Exchange Market participants to ensure market forces determine exchange rates.

On the other hand, Nwokoma is urging the CBN to adopt a quarterly payment plan for the over $700 million trapped fund remaining with the apex regulatory bank.

He said if the CBN claimed to have cleared verifiable numbers of the trapped fund, they should give a breakdown.

He said,

• The CBN should let us know what the word verifiable means because what is owed is over $800 million, and they have done $ 61 million and $ 64 million, which is $125 million.

• We are asking the government to do more because more sectors are being sorted as they did over $500 million.

• Aviation is critical, and this fund has been lingering, so we expect they do something more tangible. If they do like $200 million.

• We think they should do more, and if they say they have cleared verifiable numbers, they should break it down from what figure to what figure and how they do it. They should break it down and let us know how they do it.