Ex-Minister accuses Nigeria Banks of complicity in forex scarcity

Nigeria’s former Minister of Education, Mr. Kenneth Gbagi who served under former President Goodluck Jonathan, has berated Nigeria commercial banks for their roles in the country’s financial and economic woes.

Gbagi, accused the banks of financial activities endangering the country’s economy through shady and malicious disbursement of foreign exchange to cronies, associates and foreigners.

The former minister who was a guest on BEN TV’s current Affairs programme, Dialogue in Diaspora, said that the fight against corruption by President Buhari-led administration would be unable to solve Nigeria’s perennial foreign exchange scarcity until commercial banks and their operators are made to account for the disbursement of all dollar allocations from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

The Former Minister dismissed claims that Nigeria currently does not have enough foreign exchange; he affirmed that Nigeria has enough dollars to meet the demands of genuine end users in manufacturing and other services.

He however, accused commercial banks of deliberately sabotaging the country’s economy by selling the dollars to their cronies, friends and associates who are often non-Nigerians carting the money abroad. He added that many of the people who are currently having access to dollars from commercial banks engage in hoarding or capital flight as they did not believe in the ability of Nigeria’s economy to rebound strongly.

He also said that there would be enough dollars in circulation to force down the current high exchange rate if Nigeria’s president issued an order compelling the CBN to instruct all commercial banks in Nigeria to give an account of how they have disbursed the dollars allocated to them and for what purpose.

EFFC, CBN and other financial intelligence services, Mr. Gbagi said have failed Nigerians for their inability in identifying financial and economic criminals who engage in dubious dollar transactions to the detriment of the country.

Mr. Kenneth Gbagi, claimed that every single dollar in the last 16 years allocated by the CBN to commercial banks or any other relevant agency is traceable if the government has the will to deal with economic and financial criminals and their accomplices operating as commercial banks and Bureau de Change in the country.

He added that the EFCC and ICPC should be given more free roles to operates under their mandate as independent organisations and commissions as they need to be commended where positive results were achieved.

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