From Uche Usim, Abuja
Following last Thursday’s raid and arrest of some Bureau De Change (BDC) operators by operatives of Department of State Security (DSS), black market operators are now hoarding foreign currencies since they are being forced to sell at a price lower than what they bought from the banks.
This was as the US dollars crashed to N393 from N465 four days ago at the black market.
When Saturday Sun got to the BDC operators around the Sheraton hotels in Abuja, some of them lamented the high handedness of DSS, who forced them to crash the prices rather than allow market forces determine same.
One of them who identified his name, as Sanni told Saturday Sun that no one dares sell dollars above N395 as DSS operatives have spies among them (BDCs) that feed them with information on their operations.
“We fear DSS. They have spies among us. Remember some of our members are still in their custody. Government wants the price of dollars to come down by force”, he said.
Another BDC operator named Mohammed stated that the price forced down on them by DSS was not sustainable.
“Some of us have dollars we bought at N462 and now the government wants us to sell at N400 or N393. It can’t work. We have dollars but we won’t sell”, he said.
It would be recalled that following concerns over the Central Bank’s inability to stop naira ‘s slide on the black market, security agents had raided the offices of Black market dealers, detaining several of them while allegedly ordering others to sell dollars at a lower rate.
However while kicking against DSS’s action, Black market operators said they were being forced to fix sales of foreign currencies out of fear of being sanctioned or punished by security agents.