The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has said only petroleum products marketers without good plans have difficulties accessing needed foreign exchange for imports.
The apex bank maintained that the claims by some marketers that they were being denied legitimate access to forex, were false.
The position of the bank was made known to our correspondent on Wednesday in a telephone interview with the Director, Corporate Communications at the CBN, Mr. Ibrahim Mu’azu.
He said the bank had not denied any marketer access to forex, but explained that marketers cutting corners in their bid to get forex, would always be delayed.
Some oil marketers, who had successfully imported Premium Motor Spirit (otherwise called petrol) into the country as part of their allocation for the quarter, recently claimed that they were having challenges paying their foreign partners owing to dollar shortage.
The marketers expressed their willingness to pay their creditors, but maintained that they had not enough dollars to make the payments.
Some of them, it was also gathered, have had the naira equivalent of the sum for months now, but needed to convert the naira in their possession to dollar, as payments were made strictly on dollar terms.
To this end, Mu’azu told our correspondent that some marketers waited until payments were due before calling for forex. According to him, such calls should have been made in advance to avoid possible rush afterwards.
He said the CBN gives forex on demand, and had always given priority to critical sectors like the oil and gas.
When asked if anything had changed in recent times in terms of the conditions for accessing forex, Mu’azu said there had not been any new rule in the last one month.
He said, “It is one of our priorities that we give out forex to marketers. We have not been denying anyone this. But if the marketers do not have good plans, they will run into difficulties.”
Some marketers also claimed that with the current dollar supply situation in the financial system, they, unfortunately, have capacity to raise $1m or less within one week.
Responding to this, Mu’azu said it was possible that some marketers were being constrained, but insisted that adherence to due process would eradicate such constraints.
He added, “Oil marketers are not coming to CBN directly for forex. They liaise with their bankers. With a good plan, a marketer could have some challenges just for the first week; after which the process becomes seamless.
“It is not our practice that access to some amount of forex takes a particular period.
“Any importer having an issue knows how to make their complaints to the CBN. They are expected to make their cases directly to the CBN and they will be addressed.”
The Executive Secretary, Depots and Petroleum Products Marketers Association of Nigeria, Mr. Olufemi Adewole, in a telephone interview, told our correspondent that the association’s members were looking at re-presenting their cases to the CBN.
Adewole had told our correspondent that the scarcity of the dollar was further aggravating the woes of marketers as far as petrol importation was concerned.
He said it was not all marketers that had liquidity challenges, as some had enough naira to pay for imported products, but cannot pay because they were having difficulties getting the dollar equivalent.
According to him, the inability of marketers to access the needed dollar meant they would default in making payments for the products imported; hence, their inability to make further importation owing to previous poorly-executed purchase agreements.
