The Central Bank of Nigeria on Friday, disbursed $265m to airlines operating in the country in settlement of accrued outstanding funds from ticket sales in a bid to savage a brewing crisis in the aviation sector.
From a breakdown of the figure, $230m was released as special foreign exchange intervention while the remaining $35m was disbursed via Retail SMIS auction.
Mr Osita Nwanisobi, the Director, Corporate Communications Department, CBN while disclosing this in a statement said the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele was worried about the looming crisis the after effect on the country’s aviation sector.
According to Nwanisobi, CBN was not against the airlines repatriating their funds from the country stressing that what the CBN stood for was an orderly procedure for repatriating of funds from the country.
According to the CBN statement:
“With Friday’s release, it is expected that operators and travelers as well will heave huge sighs of relief, as some airlines had threatened to withdraw their services in the face of unremitted funds for outstanding sale of tickets.”
Clariform recalls that major foreign airlines operating in the country had threatened to suspend operations over inability to repatriate their earnings due to forex scarcity in the country.
