Contrary to reports that scarcity of foreign exchange (FX) to fund importation of petrol had hindered the efforts of government to ease fuel shortages across the county, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has explained that all FX demand for the product has been met.
Ibrahim Muazu, director, corporate communications department, CBN, who disclosed this to BusinessDay, said the CBN had not denied the oil marketers access to FX, adding that whatever challenge they were facing could be as a result of their relationship with their banks.
Investigation by BusinessDay shows that there is scarcity of FX in the banking system, as banks no longer keep the greenback after the CBN’s various FX sanitisation policies.
“Banks no longer keep dollar but buy for customers based on genuine demand,” Kunle Ezun, analyst at Ecobank Nigeria told BusinessDay.
In its continued efforts to stop illicit financial flows in Nigerian banking system, which aligns with the anti-money laundering stance of the Federal Government, the CBN officially stopped Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) from accepting foreign currency cash deposits.
The CBN had advised individuals that wish to source foreign currency for eligible and legitimate purposes such as BTA, PTA medical, mortgage, school fees, goods among others, to do so through recognised channels with the use of Form ‘A’ for “invisible” and Form ‘M’ for “visible” transactions.
“Foreign exchange at the intetr-bank market is trading in good position. The rates have been stable. The saying that forex has been scarce is not a reflection of what happens in the market,” Muazu told BusinessDay by phone.
He acknowledged that the CBN had been generous to Buraeu De Change operators (BDCs) as over 2,000 of them would get FX supply tomorrow.
The CBN last week denied about 1,599 out of 2,818 BDC operators access to FX sales due to failure to file documentation on previous dollar purchases.
Aminu Gwadabe, acting president, Association of Bureau De Change Operators of Nigeria (ABCON), told BusinessDay that the CBN had cleared a lot of BDCs after submitting their returns.
According to him, the CBN has given the BDCs extended deadline for submission of returns from 12 noon to about 4pm, and option of using manual if there is a challenge in using rendition.
Consequently, he said this had helped in strengthening the naira against the US dollar by N2 or 0.8 percent, as it closed at N248/$ in the evening on Monday, compared with N250/$ in the morning.
The local currency also gained against the dollar by N0.11k or 0.06 percent at the inter-bank FX market. It closed at N198.59k/$ as against N198.70/$ on Friday last week, data from FMDQ revealed.
However, the CBN’s clearing rates at the inter-bank market lost 0.02 percent to the dollar as it closed at N197.00k/$ from N196.97k/$ on Friday last week.
