President of Association of Bureaux De Change Operators of Nigeria (ABCON), Alhaji Aminu Gwadabe, has saids consistent evacuation of dollars illegally from Nigeria to Dubai is a threat to naira stability.
Gwadabe made the observation in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), in Lagos, yesterday.
He said currency speculators would stop at nothing to make nonsense of the gains the naira hasmade against the dollar, at the foreign exchange market in Nigeria.
Gwadabe alleged that huge sums of dollars go through the nation’s boarders illegally, creating artificial dollar scarcity in Nigeria.
The ABCON chief said “Hawala activities, where the naira is traded abroad and, in the process, create frivolous demand for the dollar is still a threat to naira stability.”
The financial expert, however, said naira hasremained stable in the local market, exchanging between N360 and N365 to the dollar in the past five months.
He said depreciation in the value in the naira is only being witnessed abroad and dismissed reports that the naira traded for as low as as N369 to the dollar at the parallel market.
He described it as the handiwork of speculators and noted that currency speculators are bent on distorting the market to mitigate the effects of their losses arising from the appreciation of the naira against the dollar.
NAN noted that since February, when the CBN started aggressive interventions at the foreign exchange market, it has injected more than 3.6 billion dollars into the market.
These series of interventions resulted in the stability of the naira at the parallel market and narrowed the gap between the interbank and parallel market exchange rates.
Some experts have advised the CBN to give more attention to the manufacturing sector in the allocation of foreign exchange to boost activities in the sector.