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Nonye Ben-Nwankwo, Gbenro Adeoye, Tunde Ajaja
Bank customers are now unable to
withdraw dollars from their domiciliary accounts amid worsened scarcity
of the currency in the financial services sector, Saturday PUNCH investigation has revealed.
With the situation, business persons and
individuals are complaining that they cannot get dollars from their
banks to do transactions.
Meanwhile, the naira has continued to
depreciate at the parallel market amid mixed reactions to the recent
foreign exchange policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria to stop selling
forex to Bureau de Change operators.
The CBN had only recently lifted its ban on the deposit and withdrawal of foreign currency by bank customers.
Currently, the naira exchanges at about N300 at the parallel market and trades at about N200 at the official interbank window.
Investigation, however, showed that the
scarcity of dollars has worsened in banks which are therefore under
pressure to meet customers’ foreign exchange demand.
For instance, a Lagos based medical
doctor, Clementina Silas, said she had been unable to withdraw the
amount she needed from her domiciliary account for over 10 days.
Silas said she was told by officials of
her bank to try several of their branches to check if they could come up
with the $1,300 she wanted to withdraw from her account.
She said after requesting for the said amount at four branches of the bank, she could only get an aggregate of $400.
She said, “I have wanted to withdraw $1,300 for the past 10 days but I have not been able to do so.
“First, I went to a branch of my bank at
Idimu, Lagos, but I was told that I could only get $100. Then I went to
other branches at Akowonjo and Ikeja but couldn’t get any there. I was
told that there was scarcity of dollars.
“I got lucky at a branch at Adeniyi
Jones Avenue, where I was able to get $200. The lady said I should come
back the next day and I might be lucky to get more dollars. When I got
back there, I could only get $100 but one of the officials at the branch
said she had to keep it for me because she had promised me that she
would try to get more for me.
“It is very annoying because it is my
money we are talking about. I don’t understand why it is difficult for
me to get my money when I need it.”
A businesswoman in Abeokuta, Ogun State,
Alhaja Aminat Musa, also lamented the situation, said. “The banks are
not releasing dollars to us and you cannot get it anywhere.”
Musa said she even had to jettison her plan to travel recently to buy some textile materials from Ghana and bring to Nigeria.
She said, “I was planning to travel
recently to Ghana, but I couldn’t go. What I normally do is to collect
dollars from my account here and exchange it with the local currency in
Ghana, Benin Republic or any other country I am buying goods from.
“But I cannot get dollars anywhere and
so I could not travel out to buy goods. So I will wait till the issue is
resolved and dollar rate comes down before I buy more goods. Even if I
buy anything now, it will be too expensive and I may not make enough
profit from it.”
A bank customer in Abuja, Pastor
Olubunmi Ogundipe, who described himself as a missionary, said his bank
had also failed to pay him money from his domiciliary account.
Ogundipe, who said the money raised
internationally for his church is paid into his domiciliary account,
lamented his inability to access the funds.
He said, “It is really embarrassing and
shameful because it is affecting God’s work. “Usually, I withdraw cash
from the account to change to naira but I have been unable to do that
for some time now. Every time I go to my bank, all I hear from the
officials is that they are trying to source for funds but up till this
moment, there has been no money.
“It is frustrating and I don’t know what
else to do. I hope that the Federal Government knows what it is doing
and where it is going with its policies because some of us are not
finding it funny at all.”
A bank executive, who spoke on condition
of anonymity but confirmed the situation, said he had been sourcing for
$1,000 for a customer since the CBN lifted the ban on forex transfer
without success. The official said not many customers have been coming
to withdraw dollars and that they have been unable to pay them as no
deposits had been recorded since the ban was lifted.
“Since the ban was lifted, people have
not been coming to deposit dollars so there is nothing to give out to
those who want to make withdrawals,” the source said.
“I asked a customer who wanted to
withdraw $1,000 to wait for us to source for funds but I have not been
able to get the money since.
“I have informed our Cash Management
Unit but there has been no feedback yet. It is a very serious issue but
the depressing part is that we don’t know how long this will continue.”
A source in one of the commercial banks,
who spoke to one of our correspondents on condition of anonymity, said
since the ban was first imposed on deposits by the CBN, most banks had
exhausted their reserve by using what they had to pay customers who came
to request for them at that time.
The source said, “To make it worse, CBN
also stopped issuing dollars to banks at that time, so there was dollar
scarcity everywhere. Even now that the ban has been lifted, there is
still no reserve because only a few people are coming to deposit their
dollars and we can’t even approach the CBN because the apex bank would
query the reason for asking for dollars. So, we have not been able to
meet the demand for dollars, even when the ban has been lifted.
“In our branch, we just received the
directive to start collecting dollar deposits from customers, and if
anyone wants to withdraw dollars, we’ll source for it even if it is to
contact other branches for assistance.”
Spokesperson for the CBN, Ibrahim Muazu,
who admitted that dollar was in short supply, said banks would need to
be aggressive to attract its deposits.
He said, “Those who deposited dollars in
their banks have the right to get their money without any excuse.
However, there are some realities, so it depends on the branch where
they are making the demand because if the branch does not have the
dollar cash, they will have to get it from other locations.
“But if you are talking of somebody with
Naira cash that wants to buy the dollar, it is a different thing and it
depends on what the bank will be able to source for him. It is not
mandatory that when you want it, you should have it for these two simple
reasons and I have given you the situations for each category.
“The hope was that when we allowed banks
to take dollar deposits, it would depend on those who are able to get
the deposits from individuals, which would not be the same with every
bank. An aggressive bank may have more than enough to satisfy its
customers than a weaker bank. So is the bank strong in mobilising
customers?”
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