CBN to penalise shipping lines over undocumented exports
Lagos -- The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, has threatened to penalise shipping companies exporting undocumented cargoes from the country.
The CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele, stated this while speaking in Abuja at the RT200 Non-Oil Export Summit 2023, which had the theme, “RT200: Challenges and Prospects”.
Emefiele said the development of the non-oil export sector was crucial given that it held vast potential for generating significant amount of foreign exchange earnings.
He said the CBN regularly monitors and appeals to exporters to document their exports and repatriate proceeds so it can be utilised optimally for the benefit of the country’s economy.
He, however, said the apex bank was aware that some people sidetrack the process by attempting to export their cargo without documentation. About three years ago, I had a meeting at the Central Bank of Nigeria in Lagos with the shipping lines. I had said the central bank will be beaming some satellites on undocumented exports.
“We had advised the shipping lines at that meeting that we will also be monitoring and if we find that they export cargo without documentation that we will penalise them including placing their accounts on post-no-debit (PND).
“We have so far not done anything like that just because we feel that the shipping lines will be responsible to do what is right. But, if we do not see the kind of cooperation that we expect, I’d have to insist that we do what we need to do,” he said.
Speaking on the success of the RT 200, the CBN governor said earnings from non-oil exports increased by 40 percent from $3 billion in 2021 to $5.6 billion at the end of 2022.
The RT200FX programme was introduced to stimulate non-oil exports with a $200 billion FX income target in the next three to five years.