The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr Yemi Cardoso says the Naira is grossly undervalued.
Cardoso said this on Tuesday in Abuja, while presenting a communiqué from the 293rd meeting of the apex bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC).
He said that the foreign exchange market had not been functioning effectively and had been distortionary in outcome, thereby creating a serious challenge for the Naira.
“We are presently investigating some of the manipulations that have been taking place.
“For distortions that came up due to bad behaviour, those involved will be made to face the full wrath of the law” he said.
The CBN governor said that the apex bank was clearing the backlog of genuine forex claims, adding that the country’s foreign reserves now stood at 34 billion dollars
“Just today, we paid another 400 million dollars to those that have been so identified,” he said.
He said that it was important that the foreign exchange market had a good amount of liquidity and minimal distortion.
“In recent times we have been able to attract liquidity into the system.
“We have attracted up to two billion dollars as a result of the tools that we have used to calibrate interest rate.“We are collaborating with law enforcement agencies to ensure that we can understand better what is going on in the market.
