The Association of Bureaux De Change Operators of Nigeria (ABCON) has asked the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to provide more roles that would enable the Bureaux De Change (BDCs) sell dollars to retail end forex buyers.
In a notice to its members nationwide, ABCON National Executive Council (NEC), said the stoppage of dollar sales to BDCs has worsened naira exchange rate against the dollar and other global currencies.
The group disagreed with the apex bank’s claim that naira has remained largely stable at the Investors’ & Exporters window, particularly since the stoppage of dollar allocation to BDCs. It said that the apex bank’s position that local currency is converging between the CBN and the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange (NAFEX) rate is doubtful.
According to ABCON NEC, BDCs remain the most potent tool for the CBN to achieve its foreign exchange rate management.
“Our position to CBN is that our members should be considered in whatever mechanism of dollar supply to the end users as it is done in other countries instead of a total blanket removal from the market. We therefore reject the statements claiming that the naira exchange rate has improved following stoppage of dollar sales to BDCs and urge our members to ignore those pronouncements,” it said.
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The ABCON NEC said it will continue to take steps that ensure that the business of its members are restored and operators continue their legitimate operations as is done in other parts of the world.
“We the EXCOS are not sleeping on our responsibility to ensure that our members’ businesses are sustained. We therefore call on all our members to continue to ignore CBN statements against the BDCs and continue to give us the necessary supports in ensuring normalcy is restored to the market,” the statement said.
It added that the ABCON management will continue in its collaboration, lobbying, media campaign and stakeholders’ engagements to ensure that BDC operators are given the right support and opportunity to thrive as is done in several other economies in the world.
ABCON NEC said the BDC sub-sector is not responsible for naira exchange rate woes. “The naira exchanges at N416.25/$ at the official market, where exchange rate has remained stable. However, at the parallel market, where majority of forex is sourced by manufacturers and retail end users, the naira exchanges at N587/$, representing over N170 premium between both markets,” the statement said.
ABCON NEC said: “We write to share the growing criminalization of our operations and business by the Apex Bank to justify its policy. It is on records that the CBN policy of stoppage of FX sales to BDCs did not only create higher demand pressure but also made the value of our national currency useless”.
“It is also a reality that majority of Foreign Exchange Retail End- Users can not meet their demands from the the preferred professional banks and therefore confusing for the CBN to continue to rejoice over its assumed success,” the statement said.
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