ABCON Commends CBN On Stable Exchange Rate
By UDO ONYEKA
The President, Association of Bureaux De Change Operators of Nigeria, ABCON Alhaji Aminu Gwadabe, has lauded the efforts of the Central Bank of Nigeria towards stabilising the foreign exchange.
Speaking exclusively to NewsBusiness in Lagos on Thursday Gwadabe said BDC operators will continue to support the CBN in achieving a stable exchange rate in the country.
He assured the regulatory bank of continued cooperation of his organisation in ensuring stable exchange through compliance with regulatory requirements.
The ABCON President, while appreciating the apex bank for the resumption of dollar sales to BDCs, urged operators to reciprocate the gesture by ensuring strict compliance with all regulatory rules and requirements.
According to him avoiding transactions not within the scope allowed by the apex bank will keep BDCs away from sanctions.
He said CBN had been taking a lot of measures, from 1986 till date in terms of foreign exchange rate management.
“From the Structural Adjustment Program, to WDAS called Dutch Auction System to RDAS to introduction of I&E Window and also the IMTSO Window for the BDC to augment liquidity in the market.
“All these measures that were taken were aimed at stabilising the market. An example, during COVID-19, the CBN came out with $100 million to banks somewhere around March or April to banks to be selling as cushion to help checkmate the spiral or the spike in the market, but what we have seen is, it does not have any impact on the exchange rate, the rates continued skyrocketing.
“Just last week, the CBN announced the resumption of BDC trading activities. With that pronouncement alone, the naira appreciated with about N 47 to the dollar from a high rate of N477 to now N430.
” We must continue to appreciate the CBN Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele for his willingness to collaborate with BDCs”, he said.
Gwadabe believe that with the BDCs takeoff on Monday, the forex market would move into positcive territory. “We are going to see more appreciation”, he said
The ABCON President also charged the apex bank to increase financial tracking within the system noting that this help to check speculations in the forex market; which is a major challenge to forex stability.
