The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), on Thursday, ascribed the prevailing fall of Naira against dollars to present unofficial diaspora remittances.
This is according to CBN acting governor, Folashodun Shonubi.
Recall that the Naira plunged to a record low of N925/$1 on the parallel market on Wednesday as demand for foreign currency outstripped supply.
Shonubi said the root cause of naira’s declining fortune is prevalence of routing diaspora remittances through unofficial quarters.
He averred this at the National Institute of Security Studies, Abuja where he delivered Distinguished Personality lecture titled: “Diaspora Remittances and Nigeria Economic Development” for members of Executive Intelligence Management Course (EIMC) 16.
The apex bank boss explained that many diaspora remittances came to Nigeria in dollars and they were not recorded officially, as such found their ways to black or parallel markets.
“With those remittances, the dollars have come in, we know the dollars have come in but we don’t see them in the official system. So, they must be going somewhere and somewhere.
“And the challenge with the black market, unofficial market or parallel market or whatever name you want to call it, it is as a result that it is not regulated, and it becomes an easy place to have criminal activities.
“We investigate bankers, not just bankers, anybody who has committed an offence, the first thing they want to do is to run to the black markets, change it to the dollars because it is less money to carry around.
“Some of the funding in the black markets are actually from diaspora remittances. That’s why it important we need to know a lot of what’s going on there. We can’t play the sentiment game. If we don’t understand the dynamics, we usually go with the literature which does not necessarily work for us,” he said.
