Emefiele defends CBN’S new policy on Bureau De Change

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor Godwin Emefiele has said the new policy on Bureau De Change is aimed at conserving the country’s foreign reserves among other objectives.

Speaking when he appeared before the House of Representatives committee on banking and currency yesterday, Emefiele said the move is part of his programme to stem the depletion of the country’s foreign reserves in unproductive transactions.

The House had a fortnight ago passed a resolution calling on the CBN to suspend the new BDC policy and equally summoned Emefiele to appear before its committee to explain the policy.

Following the resolution, the CBN reviewed the policy and extended the deadline to July 31.

But at yesterday’s session, Emefiele said the modifications had to be made to the guidelines following observations that the current operations of BDCs in Nigeria had deviated from the objectives for which they were licensed to operate.

He said many operators were only interested in widening margins and profits from the foreign exchange market regardless of prevailing official and inter-bank rates.

He further disclosed that a recent cross-country survey of BDCS carried out by the CBN revealed that 93 per cent of them were in breach of the objectives and provisions of the guidelines, noting that many of the BDCs could either not be located or relocated without approval.

He said many of them had no good accounting records, while others had no adequate sales document and lacked audit trail.

Emefiele said the policy was targeting a section of the country as had been insinuated; saying similar steps taken by the CBN in the past had yielded good results.