Importers, forex dealers battle CBN over exchange rate crisis -- It’s bad business for Forex traders

Meanwhile, Bureau De Change operators are also not at ease with the closure of the rDAS. We gathered they used to source their foreign exchange mainly through the closed window. And this has now led to scarcity of foreign exchange which badly affects their once -lucrative business.

A cross section of operators we sought their opinion at Ogba Shopping Arcade, Ogba, Ikeja, Ojodu/ Berger market, Alade Market Ikeja, as well as Broad Street, Lagos castigated the CBN for threatening their market.  Their grouse with the apex bank is that it didn’t consider their own plight and the implication of the policy on the exchange of naira.

“Yes, they needed to do something about the free fall of the naira but it is even worse now.  That means they should find out the real issue,” a dealer at Broad Street, Mr. Okechukwu Obiakwata argued in a chat with ENCOMIUM Weekly on Friday March 6, 2015.

It is true indeed that the CBN and the economic team should begin to address issues that put the economy in this perilous situation.  First is the fall in the price of oil which couldn’t have hurt this much if the economy was diversified.  There is also the issue of depletion of the foreign reserves which would have protected the naira. And with over N30 trillion ‘squandered’ over the years (if we believe the former CBN Governor, Professor Chukwuma Soludo) the naira  should have been competing neck-to-neck with the Dollar, Pounds and other world currencies if only the economy was well managed.

Share on Google Plus

About Unknown

Deji Sadiq, a.k.a DEJI OF LAGOS is a LASU trained Economist turned freelance journalist, a Blogger, an information strategist, a public affairs analyst and a committed activist with a passion for equal opportunities.