Naira hits new record low as forex market gap widens

The Nigerian naira fell to a new record low on Wednesday, to trade at N295.25 to the dollar at the interbank market — the lowest level in the new foreign exchange regime.

On the parallel market, the currency fell further, trading between 368 and 375 in major trading centres across the country.

The recent drop in naira has also seen the margin between the local currency at the interbank and parallel markets grow wider.

At the kick of the regime, about a month ago, interbank market was trading at 282, while the parallel market traded between 330 and 333 against the dollar, giving room for a N47 margin between both markets.

On Wednesday, however, that margin expanded to a maximum of N80 on every dollar.

The wider the gap, the better it gets for some Nigerian businesses, which Moses Tule, CBN director of monetary policy, defined as “economic saboteurs”.

“A Nigerian businessman will not come and get foreign exchange and try to circumvent it and use it for other purposes, he would definitely import the goods or raw materials that it was meant for,” he told TheCable in an interview.

“But some Nigerian businessmen, old men that people have respect for, will try to profiteer from where they have not sown.

“It is economic sabotage for anybody to present documentation which purports that you want to import foreign materials and when the scarce foreign exchange is given to you, you then turn around and sell it in the domestic market you now doctor the books to have access to that cash to come and sell in the foreign exchange market; that is economic sabotage.”