BY VICTORIA ONU, ABUJA
THE naira is currently being exchanged at N505 to a dollar in the black market, following the new Central Bank of Nigeria’s foreign exchange policy.
The CBN, on Tuesday, said it would no longer sell foreign exchange to Bureau De Change operators, saying it would channel its sale to banks henceforth.
The CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, announced this at the end of the Monetary Policy Committee meeting held at the CBN headquarters in Abuja.
The governor directed all banks to create a teller point for sale and disbursement of forex to their customers.
He also said the CBN would no longer process any new application for BDC licences.
A BDC operator in Abuja, who simply identified himself as Nurein, said with the CBN’s action, the exchange rate had moved from about N495 to a dollar to N505 to a dollar currently.
“CBN has refused to give Bureau de Change dollar, that is why the rate is like that. It is now N505 to a dollar,” Nurein told our correspondent.
Another BDC operator based in Lagos said the exchange rate was N501 to a dollar but that buying was N505.
“Before the CBN started to sell dollar to BDCs, we were doing this business. It was Babangida that created BDCs. So, we will get our dollar elsewhere. It will just affect the rate,” Adamu Mohammed said.
Meanwhile, the MPC has voted unanimously to retain the Monetary Policy Rate at 11.5 per cent.
It also retained the Cash Reserve Ratio and Liquidity Ratio at 27.5 per cent and 30 per cent respectively.
Emefiele said the committee also retained the asymmetric corridor of +100/-700 basis points around the MPR.
He said although the economy had succeeded in exiting the recession, the recovery was very fragile, given that the Gross Domestic Product was still far below population growth rate.
The committee, he noted, was of the strong view to consolidate on all administrative measures currently being taken to spur output growth.
