The Director of Monetary Policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Mr. Moses Tule, disclosed, yesterday, that Ghanaian businessmen and other African countries are invading the Nigerian foreign exchange market.
He disclosed this at a seminar organised for financial journalists in Calabar, Cross River State.
According to him, nationals from other African countries even as far as Central African Republic come to Nigerian Bureaux de Change for forex which was partially responsible for high demand for hard currencies at the nation’s foreign exchange market.
His words: “Ghanaian businessmen and even people come from Central African Republic to demand for forex in Nigeria. They go to the BDCs to buy whatever they can get at any rate. That is why we have asked that the BDCs should request for BVN of those to whom they sell forex and file the documents but they are not filing. The predators even demand for as much as $1 million from BDCs in Nigeria. This cannot happen in other countries.”
Tule said there must a measure of patriotism in the efforts towards a stable macro-economic environment in the country and that stakeholders in the financial industry must work with regulators interest of the economy.
The director noted that the level of frivolous forex demand was unsustainable and unacceptable.
He said Nigerians must support the CBN in blocking wastage of the nation’s foreign exchange on items that could be produced locally.
In his remarks, former Director of Research in the CBN, Mr. Charles Mordi, argued that there was no other country in the world were government finances BDCs.
He noted that the initial reaction could be that some people, especially the BDC operators, will protest but that in the end all Nigerians would gain from the policy.
The Governor of the CBN, Mr. Godwin Emefiele had also two weeks ago noted that there was no other country in the world where a central bank funds BDCs.
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