By Omodele Adigun
The Association of Bureaux De Change Operators of Nigeria (ABCON) has advised foreign exchange users and the general public to patronise only Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)-licenced bureaux de change (BDCs) to get dollars the approved rate.
In a statement issued at the weekend, ABCON President, Alhaji Aminu Gwadabe, said only CBN-licenced BDCs operate with regulatory guidelines of sallying dollars at approved rate. Gwadabe advised members of the public to always patronise CBN license BDCs which are regulatory-complaint and operate within international best practices.
He said that parallel market activities have for years become major drivers of the exchange rates and control over such transactions have become burdensome.
He said that forex speculators are capitalising on the state of the foreign exchange market and the naira to sell dollars above CBN approved approved margin.
Gwadabe said that CBN-licenced BDCs are not selling dollars to end users above the N2 per dollar margin set by the financial sector regulator to protect the naira against foreign exchange speculators and ensure exchange rate stability.
The ABCON Executive Council has therefore denied report , claiming that the CBN-licenced BDCs bought dollars at N393 to dollar and sold at N494 to dollar, representing N101 margin.
The ABCON Executive Council, has therefore brought the inaccurate report to the attention of the Nigerian Press Council, urging it to call those responsible for tor the misleading report to order. The ABCON said it was constrained to bring to the attention of the Nigerian Press Council to advise those misleading the public to diligently observe in whatever they publishe the professional ethic of accuracy, truthfulness and the right of every individual and organisation to fair hearing”.
A national daily had in a report published on Saturday, May 29, 2021, titled “Naira Devaluation: BDCs Get dollars at N393, sells for N494” attributed a report to an anonymous commercial source said “Sources from some commercial banks told our correspondent that the banks were asked to fund the BDCs at the rate of 393/$ as of Friday”. A bank official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said: “We are still giving them $10,000/BDC twice a week. As of today, we are giving them at the rate of N393/$”.
The ABCON described the report as “factually inaccurate assertions as neither do commercial banks fund BDCs nor do BDCs collect dollars from the banks”.
The ABCON Executive Council said that while its members comply rigorously with the CBN’s regulatory requirement of a predetermined weekly transaction margin, it has failed to see what informed the newspaper’s spurious claim of an imaginary selling margin.
ABCON Executive Council said ABCON has continued to ensure that BDCs file their reports as and at when due. The BDCs also do customers Know Your Customer (KYC) and due diligence reports.