Illegal forex transaction: Emefiele threatens politicians, others with ‘PND’

Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele has warned politicians looking to withdraw their naira in exchange for dollar speculations for election purposes to desist from such acts or have their bank accounts frozen.

Emefiele gave the warning on Tuesday while responding to questions from journalists who pressed him on the likely impact of election spending on the value of the naira when compared to the dollars.

 “As for those who want to buy naira from their account to buy dollars because of the election. I want to warn you that it is illegal to do so. Whereas it will sound more convenient to carry dollars because you could carry little dollars but with a lot of value in your pocket, but if the security agencies hold you, you know the implication of that.”

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He also threatened that the CBN also has monitoring tools in this possession that it can use to track the suspicious movement of forex from one account to another.

“We will continue from our own side to use our own apparatus through which we monitor movement of funds between customers or between banks and customers or from one bank to the other bank and any bank that we find in those form of transactions will be considered to be unauthorized or we considered to be illegal you can consider that your account will be placed on PND (Post No Debit).

Post no Debit (PnD) is a punitive tool used by the CBN to restrict the transfer of funds from any bank account in the country suspected of being used illegally. When the restriction is placed, the account cannot have any money transferred or withdrawn out of it for the duration it is under “PnD”.

Emefiele also warned potential collaborators that the CBN is a monster and will not hesitate to use the PND to stop customers from using their accounts for any bank transactions in the country.

“You can see CBN has turned itself into a monster that uses an injurious tool to stop you from conducting illegal flows whether domestic or foreign currency. So, I will advise you not to get involved in unauthorized and illegal movement of money from your bank to your account or from one account to another account, or a currency conversion. When you do that and you are caught in that practice your account will be placed on PND” he concluded.