President of the Association of Foreign Airlines and Representatives in Nigeria, AFARN, Mr Kingsley Nwokeoma, has asked the federal government to show evidence that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has indeed cleared all valid foreign exchange backlogs they owe foreign airlines. 

Nwokeoma told Vanguard that although foreign airlines have been told to get their funds from the banks using the rate of the I & E window, they refused because the current I & E window rate differed from what they used in selling tickets.

He said;

“If they’ve paid, they should let us know how much has been paid. Where is the evidence of payment? They should show us evidence of payments and we will thank them because payment is what we want. The backlog of trapped funds made foreign airlines stop releasing low inventory tickets.”

With $812.2 million, Nigeria tops the countries that account for 68.0 per cent of blocked funds. Others are Bangladesh ($214.1 million), Algeria ($196.3 million), Pakistan ($188.2 million) and Lebanon ($141.2 million).