Trapped Funds: CBN To Release $120 Million To Foreign Airlines — Emefiele

*Says One-Third Of Global Economy In Recession

The Governor of Nigeria’s Central Bank (CBN), Mr Godwin Emefiele on Monday disclosed that about one-third of the world’s economy “is currently in recession” due to the damaging effects of the Covid pandemic and the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine.

The CBN boss, who said this while addressing Foreign Affairs and Aviation stakeholders at a meeting with the House of Representatives Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, also pointed out that the bank was working outside the box to mop up foreign exchange and strengthen the naira and by extension the economy through the RT 200 policy.

According to him, “the RT 200 is the policy focusing on the repatriation rates of non-oil exports proceeds into the Nigerian economy which is almost a billion dollars in the 3rd quarter of 2022.

“What is happening is a global challenge. Indeed, as I speak, I can say that the global outlook today is darkening due to a deepening global slowdown. 

“Today more than one-third of the global economy is in recession. The global community is facing rising incidents of unemployment. Indeed, most countries in the world are facing rising inflation. As a result of this year alone, the USA is expected to raise rates almost by 3.75 per cent in 2022. That has created some serious inflation pressures and depreciated the currencies of other countries.

“From the CBN, since February this year, we introduced the RT 200 programme, which is a programme introduced in order to encourage repatriation of Forex proceeds from exporters of non-oil export products. We are gratified that the programme is doing well. When we started it, the first six weeks in February and March, we were only able to see repatriation. We paid rebates on repatriation of about $62 million. In the second quarter, we saw an astronomical improvement to $622 million in export proceeds of non-oil. For the third quarter, we have seen almost close to a billion dollars,” Emefiele said.

The CBN boss was responding to the issue of $700 million in trapped funds of foreign airlines, which have threatened to stop flying Nigerian routes from October 28 if nothing was done by the government to resolve the backlog.

He declared that, contrary to IATA’s representative’s position that nothing had been done to reduce the backlog, a sum of $265 million had been earmarked for disbursement to the foreign airlines through their various banks.

According to him, “aside from the prioritisation of FX we have always accorded airlines, on the 31st of August, you spoke to me because I have to give you credit for that. That day, I made a decision to use our discretion to allocate $265 million to foreign airlines. 

“We did $110 million in spot and the rest 60 days forward. On that day we allocated to IATA $32 million through UBA, Qatar Airways got $22.8 million through Standard Chartered, Emirates got $19.6 million through Access Bank, BA got $5.5m through GTB;

“Virgin Atlantic got $4.8 million through Zenith and so on. 

“How then can they go about and begin to say they have not received their money? This is aside from the so-called 8 or 10 per cent you say you are getting Mr Fatokun (referring to the IATA representative). 

“This is extra allocation which we use our own discretion to give you and which I have told you personally that we would continue to do so as to make you guys happy so you don’t continue to blackmail this country.