From Steve Oko, Umuahia
Former Senator, Emma Nwaka, who represented Abia North District in the third republic, has commended the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), over its new policy on overseas remittances, saying it is more beneficial both to the Nigerian economy and the individual beneficiaries.
The CBN had last week, directed that remittances from overseas “shall henceforth be received by the beneficiaries in currency of its place of origin”.
According to him, the new policy has brought an end the era of shortchanging of the beneficiaries by the intermediary banks who only gave them Naira equivalents and later traded with the foreign currency to boost their revenues.
His words: “Before now we had a situation where when your relatives abroad send you money via Western Union or any other outlet, your bank in Nigeria gives you the equivalent of the amount sent in our local currency thereby shortchanging our economy by checkmating foreign currency inflows.
“Nigerian banks turn around to trade with the FX to boost their revenues and yearly profits”.
Senator Nwaka urged CBN to formulate more proactive policies that would arrest the free fall of the Naira against Dollar to save the Nigeria economy from further collapse.
The former Chairman, Board of Directors of the University College Hospital, UCH Ibadan, frowned at the discriminatory exchange rate policy of the CBN in favour of certain sectors, a development he said was not only draconian but injurious to any economy.
He argued that if exchange rate is in favour of any sector or individual, it encourages ’round tripping’, a sharp practice where the favoured individuals simply collect their allocation of forex at a cheaper rate from CBN and sell them off at a higher rate to bureau the change thereby making huge profits without stress.
