ABCON sets N250/$ exchange rate agenda for President Buhari

The Association of Bureaux de Change Operators of Nigeria (ABCON) has set N250 to dollar exchange rate agenda for President Muhammadu Buhari in his second term in office.

ABCON president, Alhaji (Dr) Aminu Gwadabe, who disclosed this to financial journalists in Lagos, said achieving lower exchange rate for the economy will benefit the common man and uplift businesses.

The naira currently exchanges at N362 to a dollar at the parallel market and N358 to a dollar at the Bureaux De Change (BDC) while the local currency exchanges at N306 to dollar at the official rate.

The ABCON boss also said such lower exchange rate will improve the transaction volume for BDCs by enabling operators to buy and sell more dollars from their available cashflow.

He said a lower exchange rate against the greenback will stabilize the local currency, raise investors’ confidence, improve Diaspora remittance flow and entrench fiscal discipline.

He argued that a stronger naira will raise Internally Generated Revenue, help in the implementation of the restriction of foreign exchange access to 42 items that can be produced locally and improve BDCs capabilities to thrive.

Gwadabe therefore advised the Federal Government to constitute a new economic management team and review government’s performance in the last four years. He added that such review will give room for better performance in the second term of this administration which commences on May 29, 2019.

Gwadabe said the economy is not performing to expectations, and government is expected to re-strategise and review its performance in the last four years and develop concrete actionable strategy for better performance. The All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, emerged the winner of the 2019 presidential election in Nigeria. The incumbent president, who defeated 73 other candidates, scored a total of 15,191,847 votes across 19 states.

Gwadabe said if government waits till May 29 before setting up a thinktank economic team with functional experience on the economy, security, agriculture and human resource development, it would have wasted tangible time needed for smooth take-off.

He said the committee members should have deep knowledge of the economy, and be ready to access information on how these sectors have worked effectively in other countries in order to deploy similar strategies in the interest of the local economy.