The scarcity of dollar and other popular foreign currencies which has been overcome at the black market for the past few months has resurfaced, encomium.ng can authoritatively reveal.
Our checks at few markets on Monday, August 28, 2017, revealed that the inflow of the currency has reduced, therefore resulting in the sudden scarcity as the bureau de change operators are battling at the moment. And if this continues for the next few days, it’s, no doubt, going to lead to unprecedented hike in the exchange rate which is still being pegged at N370 to a US dollar.
Confirming the unpalatable situation, one of the operators, Mallam Yakub Adamu said, “We’re no longer getting dollar supply as we used to in the past three months. I don’t really know what’s happening now. Most of the people that bring in dollar for exchange have also reduced. As you see most of us here filing out, we’re just here doing nothing. The whole thing started going down since two weeks ago. If it continues for more days, it will be very difficult for us to trade with dollar at N370 again. It will have to go up because the scarcer the dollar is the higher the excgange rate. We pray the government pumps in more dollar into the system.”
Corroborating the earlier submission, another operator, Usman Sa’ad stated, “The volume of all these foreign currencies, especially dollar in the market is very low now. We don’t have enough to trade with while people keep demanding more. I think another reason for the scarcity we’re experiencing now is that the hajj operation really drained the dollar in the market apart from the fact that the government has not been pumping enough foreign currencies into the market this time around. May be, the situation will change when people who went for hajj return next month. But if it remains like this for about two or three weeks more, a dollar will be sold for N400 or more.”
– TADE ASIFAT for encomium.ng