The Central Bank of Nigeria has halted sales of U.S dollars to Bureau De Change operators in the country, causing Naira to fall marginally further against the U.S dollars in the parallel market.
According to Godwin Emefiele, the current CBN governor, the parallel market has become a haven of illegal exchanges and flows, and banks will no longer sell dollars to them. Accordingly, all applications under processing for new BDCs will be called off. This, he disclosed during a live TV broadcast where he noted that all weekly forex transactions will go directly to commercial banks..
“We are concerned that BDCs have allowed themselves to be used for graft,” Mr Emefiele said.
Furthermore, he disclosed that the usual direct transactions between the Apex banks and the BDCs will be halted, and the Apex bank will now deal directly with commercial banks owing to to betrayal of confidence bestowed in BDCs. Henceforth, travelers and those in urgent need of dollars will have to deal directly with commercial banks. The benchmark policy rate will, however, be retained as MPR remains at 11.5% and CRR at 27.5%.
Currently, the exchange rate of U. S dollars to Naira stands at N505.00 per $1 at the parallel market in Lagos while the exchange rate was at N411.67 per $1 on the FMDQ Security Exchange where forex is officially traded.
By Abdulbaasit Saliyu