The Federal Government is putting structures in place to ensure that only the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) would henceforth import petroleum products, Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, has informed.
Emefiele, who spoke in an interview with Financial Times of London recently, said that the president actually promised to work very hard to reduce importation of petroleum products by ensuring that Nigeria’s refineries work.
According to Emefiele: “The president came on board and said that we will work very hard to reduce importation of petroleum products by ensuring that our refineries work. Our refineries are working now. Warri and Port Harcourt have started producing, they have not obtained the optimal capacity but they will. Kaduna refinery will start working this month.
“Now, there are other actions that the presidency is putting in place to ensure that we reduce importation of petroleum products where the NNPC will solely, almost solely be responsible for procuring refined petroleum so those who are importing petroleum products will only just need to go to the NNPC and pick up petroleum products. So in that area I would say that we are already moving in the direction of reducing the import of petroleum products. And we will achieve it.”
As the President is making efforts to recoup stolen oil revenues which he said were deposited in banks, the CBN boss said the issue is still being looked at, assuring that “as the central bank, we will also assist in drilling them once we get to that stage, and we will be happy to have that money back because it will improve our reserves.”
He added that there are other leakages that are being blocked that are expected to improve the country’s foreign reserves position, explaining that although the Treasury Single Account is a policy that was being pursued before President Buhari assumed office, it is now more vigorous.
“It means that all revenue-generating agencies are compelled that once they receive the revenues, the revenues must come to the centre, and that means those revenues will come to the Central Bank of Nigeria. We had instances where some of those revenues were trapped outside the central bank. The president came on and he insisted that all revenues come to the centre and that’s what we are saying, and it’s the reason why you are seeing some improvements in the reserves position,” he noted.
Emefiele maintained that the CBN is closing the gap between the parallel market and the inter-bank rate, stressing: “The gap is closing and I imagine that foreign investors should be happy that we are doing everything possible to close the gap. Based on that, they will believe us when we say that the parallel market is a shallow market, and that there is no need to use the parallel market as the benchmark for determining the real value of our currency.”
Latest data by the CBN on Sunday, showed that external reserves stood at $31.522 billion as of August 5, 2015, representing a month-on-month increase of about $1.973 billion or 6.67 per cent, compared to the $29.548 billion level on July 6. Agency report
