Bureau De Change Traders Associations in Wuse Zone 4, Abuja, has urged the Central Bank of Nigeria to dialogue with operators before implementing the new N35 million minimum capital requirement. The Chairman of the association, Alhaji Salisu Garu, made the call in
an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Wednesday.
NAN recalls that the apex bank on Monday issued a circular that it would increase the minimum capital requirement of bureau de change from N10 million to N35 million. Garu said that dialoguing with operators would help the CBN to understand the challenges in the business and know how best to formulate and implement its policies.
“I think the policy is not done yet, for me, I don’t think they have released the full policy.
“Because having increased the initial capital from N10 million to N35 million will eliminate a lot of stakeholders, many people may not be able to pay the N35 million as capital. “And as a result of that a lot of bureau de change are going to be eliminated and many people will be out of business and it will end up mounting pressure on Naira,’’ the operator said.
According to him, the few people operating in the market will manipulate the market, hoard dollars and make the naira victim of the market.
“For instance now, we have more than a thousand bureau de changes that collect 50,000 dollars each per week.
“If for any reason that amount goes down; definitely the demand of the market is not going to be met.
“And once we have a demand in the market and supply is less, automatically naira suffers, that is why we have not been able to achieve stability in the market.’’ The operator said the CBN should be able to sensitise the people to change their attitude toward the use of hard currency.
Nigerian elite and politicians, the operator added, should be well sensitised to use the local currency rather than foreign currency. Also, another operator, Malam Mustapha Abdullahi, told NAN that the
policy might have little positive implication and more negative effect. According to him, the positive aspect of the policy will be to reduce the number of operators and bring about little sanity in the system. “But one thing I know is that the new capital requirement is too high for young people like me just starting the business. . (NAN)
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