ALERT: Naira ‘could fall’ to 400/$ next week

Taiwo Ebenezer, the southwest chairman of Bureau de Change (BDC) operators is afraid that the naira could fall to 400 against the green back unless something is the currency’s free fall.

According to Ebenezer, more than 30,000 Nigerians working with the BDCs have become jobless, as a result of the central bank of Nigeria (CBN) policy.

Speaking on Business Morning with Channels Television, Ebenezer said the BDCs had been facing difficulties in surviving the latest CBN policy.

“If between now and next week this windows are not open; it will get to 400 to a dollar. There is no other source these dollars come from and there’s a lot of demand,” he said.

“The area we fund, the school fees, since we were cut off, those people rushed to banks; that’s why you see CBN coming up that it’s not as if they stopped banks from selling school fees, BTA, but the fund is not there, the banks are not selling.

“It has been difficult to survive. In fact, over 30,000 of our staff are now jobless across the country. Since the policy, they have been jobless, because you cannot pay what you don’t earn.”

He added that the naira, which is currently trading at 355 to the dollar, can rise as high as 250 by Monday if CBN allows BDCs source dollars from international oil companies.

“If CBN answers us, say tomorrow or today, I assure you that from this 355 – by doing that, you are increasing the supply – I assure you by Monday, dollar will go back to 250.

“Let them give it a try, we would do it, we would try our best. Our case is like an army officer, you want to fight Boko Haram, you now give him cutlass to go and fight somebody that is holding gun, how is he going to fight?

“We don’t have dollar; we can’t access anything. We can’t access CBN window, we can’t access autonomous window.”

He argued that since BDCs are answerable to CBN, CBN should see them as a tool for controlling the naira and not otherwise.