CBN releases financial statements for the last seven years

The Central Bank of Nigeria has released its Consolidated Financial Statements for the last seven years, making it the first time since 2015, that the apex bank will be making its book available for public scrutiny.

The Consolidated Financial Statements, which were published on the Apex bank’s website, are for 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 financial periods.

The CBN declared a profit after tax of N103.8bn in 2022, up from N75.13bn reported a year earlier.

Also, the CBN owes JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs a combined sum of $7.5bn as of the financial year ended December 2022.

Included as part of its liabilities, is another $6.3bn owned in foreign currency forwards.

The apex bank, however, stated it owes Goldman Sachs $500 million and JP Morgan $7 billion in what it classified as securities lending.

The 2022 financial statement reads; “The Group entered into a securities lending agreement with Goldman Sachs and J. P. Morgan and as part of the agreement, the Group pledged its holdings on foreign securities in return for cash. The cash received from Goldman Sachs is N0.23tn ($500m), 2021: N0.22tn ($500m), and JP Morgan N3.23tn ($7bn), 2021: N3.05tn ($7bn) is recognised in other foreign securities.”

The report further indicated that Securities lending formed part of the CBN’s total external reserves of about N14.3tn or $29bn using the official exchange rate of N494/$1 as of 2022.

However, the apex bank also owes another N3.15tn ($6.3bn) in foreign currency forward which are forex obligations it needs to make to foreign investors.

The Apex bank stopped publishing its statements in 2016, which goes against the CBN Act of 2007, which mandates the apex bank to publish its report within two months after the end of each financial year.

Last week, President Tinubu appointed a financial investigator, to Investigate the CBN’s books.

CBN/Punch/Hauwa Abu