Nigeria has become the world’s biggest importer of United States
dollars. Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Governor, Mallam Lamido Sanusi, made the
disclosure yesterday.
He noted that the situation had to be reversed. Speaking in
Abuja after the 234th meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee, Sanusi
expressed worry over suspected money laundering activity through the bureaux de
change segment of the forex market and said the CBN was determined to curb such
abuses and keep the naira stable
According to him, new guidelines that would
make transactions at the bureaux de change, BDC, market more closely monitored
and spell out stiffer penalties for infractions of the guidelines.
Sanusi said the move became necessary in view of perceived
lapses within the BDC sub-sector of the foreign market in recent times and the
need to ensure strict compliance with the rules in the market.
Sanusi, who also disclosed that the Committee decided to retain
the Monetary Policy Rate, MPR, at 12 per cent with a corridor of +/-200 basis
points around the midpoint, 50 per cent CRR on public sector funds and 12 per
cent on private sector deposits, said most of the decisions taken at the
meeting were informed by developments in the domestic and global economic
environments, particularly to sustain macroeconomic stability in the economy.
Although the governor did not give details about the proposed
policy measures, he however confirmed that the issues that would form the
object of the guidelines will be how to curtail the incidence of money
laundering, avoid multiple exchange rate regime and spikes that will create
arbitrage and also prevent the likelihood of the country becoming the highest
importer of the US dollar globally. He explained: “We will come out with
policies in the near future; I am not going to tell you the details.
You must remember that one of the challenges we have is that we
are dealing with some of the policies that get in the way of each other. We
need to stop the money laundering.
We need to reduce the amount of cash dollars through BDCs and at
the same time we need to make sure that we do not have a multi exchange rate
regime and spikes that will create arbitrage.
“There has to be a whole set of policies that are looked at
carefully and pursued with a lot of determination. We think there is something
absolutely wrong with BDCs buying hundreds of millions of dollars and not being
able to account for them. We think that these monies are not being used for
importation of goods and services. We think they are a part of a money
laundering exercise and we would have to deal with it.
“We also think that the whole policies around massive
withdrawals and deposits of cash should now move from naira to dollars and we
have to stop the situation where Nigeria has become the highest importer of US
currency in the world.
In the next few weeks, you will see a sector with new policies from
us. I know there would be a lot of resistance from outside but again, what’s
new?” Sanusi asked.
On the recent rumblings within the discount houses, he said the
CBN was already taking steps to investigate the operations of the entities,
adding that with the recent revocation of the licence of Express Discount House
and establishment of the soundness of two others investigated, there are no
causes for alarm.
According to him, CBN examiners had already moved into Express
Discount House with a view to determining the extent of fraud perpetrated
there, assuring that no depositor would lose their deposits as all unsecured
depositors of the company would be paid within this week.
“We have taken comprehensive review of various discount house
activities which resulted in the recent revocation of Express Discount House
which further led to total review of their activities.
“We discovered that Kakawa and Associated Discount Houses are in
good form and their shareholders – First Bank, GTB, FCMB, Access Bank- are also
doing well, but in the case of Consolidated Discount House, there appears to be
a massive fraud and misrepresentation of accounts and we have taken action.
“We have examiners in there trying to know the extent of damage
over there. We, however, assure its depositors that we will pay all unsecured
deposits by the end of this week. No depositor is going to lose any money in
that discount house”, Sanusi assured. CDL is owned by First Bank of Nigeria
Plc, Mainstreet Ltd, Skye Bank Plc, Union Bank of Nigeria Plc, CDL Cooperative
and Williams Street Trustees Ltd.
Sanusi also restated the apex bank’s commitment to ensure Naira
exchange rate stability by adopting appropriate monetary policies to protect
the currency from the vagaries of the foreign exchange market but that this
agenda would not be pursued at all cost.
He clarified further: “My view and that of the CBN is if we need
to tighten money, use some of our reserves to support economy we will, no CBN
Governor will say he will support currency at all cost. But we want to be very
clear that there is no country that allows its currency to just be determined
by market.
“We are not looking for a stronger currency neither are we
looking at a weaker one. People want to pay fees and investors want to know
that they will have returns for their investments. We will use reserves, we
will use interest rates, we have gone through the difficult months, hopefully
the next few months will not be difficult. We will not allow the naira to be
weakened and we are committed to that,” Sanusi added.
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