Senior officials of both the Central Bank of Nigeria and the federal Ministry of Finance have told BusinessDay there is “absolutely” no plan to convert funds held in the domiciliary accounts into Naira contrary to reports by a section of the press.
“I do not why anyone will publish such a baseless article like this at this time in our nation’s financial history,” Governor Yemi Cardoso told BusinessDay Saturday.
“There is absolutely no such plan to seize funds in domiciliary accounts or to convert such funds to naira,” he added.
Wale Edun, Nigeria’s Finance Minister and Co-ordinating minister for the economy also denied there was any such plan when contacted by BusinessDay.
According to him, “there is no iota of truth in the claims of the Newspaper that the Federal Government plans to convert foreign exchange in depositors’ domiciliary accounts to naira.
“The publication of such falsehood at a time when the government is working to restore economic stability and confidence in the national currency is tantamount to economic sabotage;.
“This report in the … Newspaper violates the standards of responsible journalism and it is a breach which will no doubt be taken up by the appropriate authorities in due course.
“For the avoidance of doubt, I emphasize that depositors’ foreign currency in their domiciliary accounts will not be converted to naira.”
Source: BusinessDay
