Up to 30,000 bureau de change workers could lose their jobs as CBN stops selling dollars

AS many as 30,000 bureaux de change (BDC) workers could be sacked within the first quarter of this year as the growing scarcity of foreign exchange is threatening to wreck havoc across the sector.

 

Currently, there are about 200,000 workers are engaged in the sector across Nigeria but their jobs are now under severe threat as falling oil prices has made foreign exchange extremely scarce. With crude oil now selling for less than $30 a barrel compared with over $100 a barrel last year, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has less foreign exchange to sell to banks and BDCs.

 

Alhaji Aminu Gwadabe, the president of the Association of Bureau De Change Operators of Nigeria (Abcon), said that the planned downsizing followed the continued loss of business by operators after the CBN stopped its weekly dollar sales to its members. He listed those to be affected as including directors, auditors, operations managers and compliance officers, as well as chief executives.

 

CBN governor Godwin Emefiele said: “Operators in this segment of the market would now need to source their foreign exchange from autonomous sources. They must, however, note that the CBN would deploy more resources to monitoring these sources to ensure that no operator is in violation of our anti-money laundering laws.”

 

However, Alhaji Gwadabe added: “As law- abiding citizens and partners in progress with the CBN, we respect the decision of the apex bank as the regulator of the banking industry and foreign exchange market where we operate. While we are not totally surprised by the decision, we, however, believe there are better ways of addressing the challenges in the foreign exchange market.

 

“Suffice to mention that before the CBN started selling dollars to BDCs in 2006, there were about 270 BDCs in the country. Despite the harsh operating environment, these operators were able to survive by servicing their clients and the BDC industry was created by the CBN to fill a critical gap in the retail segment of the foreign exchange market."

 

He added that the decision to sell dollars to BDCs was in recognition of their role to counter the effect of the illegal currency traffickers and the continued depreciation of the naira in the parallel market. According to Alhaji Gwadabe, it was the involvement of the BDCs through the direct sale of dollars that led to the historic convergence of exchange rates in 2006.