….Says $26Bn Transactions Through Binance Nigeria Difficult To Trace
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Dr. Olayemi Cardoso, on Tuesday disclosed that the apex bank spent over N10 trillion in interventions to different sectors of the economy over the past six years without significant results to show for such humongous expenditure.
He explained that the huge financial injection into the economy during the period without significant impact on the performance of the economy was partly responsible for the excessive liquidity, surging inflation rate and other macroeconomic whirlwinds in the economy.
Cardoso, who gave these hints shortly after the end of the two-day CBN February Monetary Policy Committee (MPC’s) meeting in Abuja, lamented that some of the intervention funds did not get to the intended beneficiaries, adding that in view of the findings, the apex bank had temporarily discontinued the interventions.
He explained: “On interventions, and the fact the CBN has said that it is moving away from that. Yes, it is. The reason is not far-fetched. Everyone is concerned about inflation, and price instability. Since everyone is being heavily affected why won’t we put everything we have to ensure we fight the monster?
“The interventions have two dysfunctions as far as I am concerned. Firstly, it takes away a lot of your time on something that you don’t have the expertise to do. Secondly, if not carefully handled, creates a lot of distortions in your economy through the inflow of money supply.
“The interventions that took place in the recent past were estimated more than N10 trillion. I’m not talking of ways and means, I’m talking of interventions. What was the budget of the Federal Government of Nigeria? What was the budget of the largest state in Nigeria? Do the math and it will tell you the extent of damage. Too much of what may appear as a good thing can do to an economy” the CBN Governor stated.
“It is a major issue. The interventions that are out there need to be properly monitored to ensure they come back and we are already doing that with various degrees of success. At some point, we will make the figures public” Cardoso added.
The banker stressed that “the time when we have failed interventions in Nigeria is over. We have no room to take up interventions that will fail and do not get down to the people it was intended to get down to.”
This is even as he disclosed that over $26 billion had passed through a cryptocurrency payment platform – Binance Nigeria – in the last four years the sources and users which the apex bank could not easily identify
Cardoso said: “In the case of Binance, in the last year, 26 billion dollars have passed through Binance Nigeria from sources and users who we cannot adequately identify.”
