Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Tuesday injected another sum of 100 million dollars into the interbank foreign exchange market to maintain the strength of the local currency.
This disclosure was made on Tuesday by CBN acting Director, Corporate Communications, Isaac Okorafor.
Okorafor explained that the measure became necessary as part of the initiatives to make forex easily accessible, thereby crashing demand at the black market.
He said that the measure was to fund the commercial banks with enough Forex to cater for the request of customers and to meet basic travelling allowance, medicals and tuition fees.
This fresh injection by the apex bank brings the amount so far pumped into the interbank Forex market within the last two weeks to 1.14 billion dollars for both forwards and invisibles.
Meanwhile, a former Economic Adviser to former President Olusegun Obasanjo, Prof. Ode Ojowu said the measure would further create problems for currency speculators who had not recovered from the sudden appreciation of the Naira.
“It appears this time around, the CBN has decided to become smarter than the market manipulators by putting on its cap of authority to look beneath the market forces,” he said.
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