An accusation by President Muhammadu Buhari recently that some banks and government officials run Bureau de Change (BDC) in the country using surrogates has been rebuffed by the President, Association of Bureau De Change Operators of Nigeria, ABCON, Alhaji Aminu Gwadabe.

Gwadabe, said that as far as it was possible for some public officials to run BDC in the name of others to drain the nation’s coffer, such was not the case with any of its members.

Gwadabe, while responding to media enquiry, was quick to finger the Central Bank’s guideline which made BDC operations voluntary to anybody so far they can afford the N35 million mandatory caution fee, a situation which increased the number of operators in the country thus, making monitoring and controlling difficult.

“The president may be right in what he said, certainly no doubt, but I’m not so sure that such things happen among our members. In this case, the leadership of the Central Bank has a lot to do because it is the one issuing licence and should give adequate attention to proper checking before doing so.”

He an appealed to President Buhari to reconsider his stand on restriction of forex via CBN window as businesses have not been encouraging since the ban took effect, adding that volume of business had reduced drastically to zero level.

On the N35 million mandatory caution deposit which the CBN had promised to return to operators after applying for refund, Gwadabe said none of its members had received any alert to that effect despite that they had been applying.

He added that the association was ready to put heads together with the Federal Government, stakeholders and regulators to ensure transparency and strict monitoring in the system.

Source: Thisday