The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has said that it still has the ca¬pacity to defend the naira.
The apex bank stated this on Tuesday at the Bankers’ Committee meeting held in Lagos.
Addressing journalists after the meeting, Bisi Ona¬sanya, managing director, FirstBank, said, “The CBN also made it clear during this meeting that up till the next three months it still has am¬munition to defend the naira”.
According to him, the Bankers’ Committee agreed that there is need to do a lot more to ensure there is in¬creased accretion to foreign reserve as a basis for defend¬ing the currency.
This is coming on the heels of uncertainties in the global economy, especially arising from the tapering in the US and the resolution of crisis in Iran as well as the impact on the outflow of investment in Nigeria.
He said it has been dis¬covered that fear of naira devaluation may have been the factor making foreign investors to begin to with¬draw their funds from the country.
Onasanya said the Bank¬ers’ Committee has reviewed all decisions on the table and agreed that those options on the table are the right option in the face of the constraints faced at the moment.
“We have seen statistics from the CBN in terms of the continual reduction in the balance of foreign reserves. When you are confronted with that the only option available is to continue to tighten until you see result”, The FirstBank chief execu¬tive said.
