The Naira depreciated toN269 against the United States dollar at the parallel market on Wednesday, December 16. The depreciation, according to Aminu Gwadabe, president, Association of Bureau de Change Operators, came at the wake of the Central Bank of Nigeria’s decision to cut the amount of dollars it sold to BDCs from $30,000 to $10,000 on Wednesday.“There is dollar scarcity right now, the central bank has shrunk supplies despite increasing the number of BDCs at its window,” Gwadabe said.
The CBN issued a circular last week, urging the BDCs to consider obtaining dollars from private sources to fund personal and business travels.
The prevailing forex crunch has also constrained commercial banks to slash the amount of dollars their customers can access through the ATMs debit cards while outside by 70 percent. Currently, some banks have cut their customers’ card spending to $5000 against the $50,000 annual spending limit allowed by the CBN.
By Dike Onwuamaeze