CBN Governor, Lamido Sanusi
As
part of its efforts to curb money laundering, the Central Bank of
Nigeria has asked Deposit Money Banks to start paying proceeds from
international money transfer firms such as Western Union and MoneyGram
only in naira.
Already, the CBN has revoked the
operating licences of 20 Bureau De Change operators, which it said
purchased “unusually large amounts of foreign exchange from the DMBs and
failed to render returns of the utilisation.”
The CBN, in a circular on its website,
said, “The affected BDCs did not render returns on the utilisation of
the foreign exchange purchased and also failed to provide documentary
evidence that their purchases were utilised for eligible transactions in
accordance with the relevant provisions of the Money Laundering Act.
“Consequently, the operating licences of
the 20 BDCs have been revoked by the CBN. Also, the Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission has been requested to investigate the matter
for the persecution of indicted persons.”
The CBN, in circulars posted on its
website on Friday, announced new measures to tackle money laundering,
which it said was weakening the naira and risked pushing up inflation.
“Available statistics indicate that
Nigeria has become the largest importer of United States dollars,” the
regulator said in Friday’s notice explaining that its twice-weekly
wholesale foreign exchange auction would be replaced with a retail
version requiring dealers to reveal the identity of their buyers,
according to a Reuters report.
Corruption in the build-up to the 2015
election is partly responsible for the increase, CBN Governor, Mr.
Lamido Sanusi, said at the central bank’s Monetary Policy Committee
meeting on Tuesday, adding that it was “absolutely wrong” for bureaux de
change to buy hundreds of millions of dollars without accountability.
“We have seen evidence of huge demand
for dollars by bureaux de change, huge purchases of cash that are not
accounted for and that signals money laundering, and we’ve got to deal
with it,” Sanusi told Reuters by telephone.
“It is a small class of people that has
access to huge rents, and that rent has been dollarised,” he said,
adding that the bank had been monitoring portfolio outflows and imports,
and found that neither could explain the surge in dollar demand.
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