The naira tumbled against the US dollar at the foreign exchange market on Friday amid the continued raid of Bureau De Change operators by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, and January’s Federation Account Allocation Committee revenue distribution to the three tiers of government.
Data from FMDQ showed that the naira depreciated to N1,665.50 per US dollar at the close of trade on Friday from N1571.31 on Thursday.
This represents N94.19, or 5.68 per cent depreciation compared to the N1,571.31 recorded at the close of trading on Thursday.
The depreciation comes despite the continued clampdown on BDCs by EFCC operatives, leading to a surge in the demand for FX.
The development comes after two days of appreciation of the naira against the US dollar at the official forex market on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Similarly, it was exchanged for N1,800.00 per USD on Friday at the parallel market from an average of N1,680 on Thursday.
Meanwhile, experts in the financial sector had raised concerns that the country’s forex would worsen if the Federation Account Allocation Committee shared its disbursal revenue with federal, state, and local governments.
OsunDailyNG reports that FAAC shared N1.149 trillion in January revenue with the federal, state, and local governments.
OsunDailyNG recalls that for the past few weeks, the Central Bank of Nigeria has introduced several policies to checkmate the continued fluctuations of the naira in the FX market.
The latest policies by CBN were the new guidelines issued to stop the payout of Personal Travel Allowance, PTA, and Business Travel Allowance, BTA, in cash.
