Moghalu to CBN: if you cannot discipline the banks, you cannot stabilise the financial system.
By Ishaya Ibrahim
Former deputy governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Kingsley Moghalu, has strongly recommended a crackdown on banks as the way around Nigeria’s foreign exchange crisis.
Moghalu said the banks are hoarding huge amount of forex which they use for speculation.
He said if the central bank wields the same regulatory hammer on the banks as it has done on Binance, things would have been much better.
Moghalu made the comment on Wednesday as a guest of the Morning Show on Arise Television.
He said: “ If you go to the banking system, less than five per cent of Nigerians have more than N500,000 in their bank accounts, and that should tell you something.
“The problem with the banks is that the banks are playing financial roulette, kalo kalo. They are making money out of it, because we are a resource extractive economy. But in the matter of Forex, there have been reports that some of the banks have been hoarding forex.
READ ALSO
Tinubu affirms: Nigerian economy stable, not in distress
“I think we had $7 billion in the bank and there was a regulation put out by the central bank on the net open position. So, its very clear that there are many aspects of speculation that has driven the Naira down. One, is in the crypto market, with Binance. Yes, we get it.
“There is also the aspect with the banks and we see also the central bank focusing a lot on Binance and crypto, but we don’t see a push to bring banks under discipline. And I worry about that, because if you cannot discipline the banks, you cannot stabilise the financial system.
“So, I’m saying to the central bank, investigate the banks thoroughly. If you find that any one of them have infractions on the forex guidelines, crackdown hard. Fire a couple of CEOs and everybody will sit up. We did it, so I’m not talking theory.”
