Indications has emerged that time has come for operators of parallel exchange market, popularly called ‘black market’ to start thinking of changing line of business as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has been mandated by federal government to introduce a policy that will end it permanently.
The Finance Minister, Kemi Adeosun Tuesday dropped the hint in Abuja, saying because the business is damaging the economy and making it difficult to control the monetary and fiscal policies, “The CBN had been directed eliminate Naira black market”.
Arguing that the illicit market had contributed to the current scenario where the naira trades about 40 percent below the official rate against the dollar, she lamented the situation where the naira had traded around 305.5 naira to the dollar on the official interbank market since August, while it was quoted between N487 to the dollar on the parallel market on Monday and N490 on Tuesday.
Explaining issues during an economic conference in Abuja yesterday, Adeosun made it clearer that “The CBN has been directed to do this and CBN has promised to do something by putting a system in place to eliminate the black market because it’s damaging the economy.”
Responding, Acting Director, Corporate Affairs/Communications at CBN Mr. Isaac Okorafor, said the bank is already moving to “ensuring that the forex market operates as effectively as we would envisage,” noting that “CBN will ensure there is no black market.”
It would be recalled that during the last MPC meeting, the Governor of CBN, Godwin Emefiele said the raid on black market will be sustained even though nothing had been heard about that in recent weeks.
