Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr. Godwin Emefiele
The House of Representatives on Thursday evoked the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr. Godwin Emiefele, over the incipient capital base of N35m set for Bureau de Change operators.
The House, which asked the CBN to suspend the policy for now, directed its Committee on Banking and Finance to ascertain why Emiefele introduced such a policy.
The CBN governor is expected to meet with the committee at a session to be presided over by the chairman, Mr. Chukwudi Jones-Onyereri.
The resolution of the House came after members debated a kineticism on exigent public consequentiality moved by a lawmaker from Zamfara State, Mr. Ibrahim Shehu-Gusua.
He had argued that the policy would cripple the economic wellbeing of many Nigerians employed in the informal sector.
Shehu-Gusua apprised the House that the CBN recently incremented the capital base of the BDCs by 25 per cent from N10m to N35m.
He verbalized the policy additionally raised the licensing fee from N500,000 to N1m, and incremented the annual instauration fee from N10,000 to N25,000.
Shehu-Gusua integrated that the fees were besides the application fee of N100,000.
“The House is apprehensive that the increments are outrageous against the backdrop that the CBN will additionally reduce the amount of dollars being issued to the BDCs from $50,000 to $15,000 per week,” he verbalized.
The lawmaker inculpated the CBN of deliberately orchestrating to compound the unemployment quandaries in the country through the exordium of the policy.
“This policy will send many youths engaged in the informal sector out of jobs. This policy has no human face and it is arduous to decipher the purport it will accommodate the Nigerian masses,” Shehu-Gusua integrated.
A member from Anambra State, Mrs. Uche Ekwunife, additionally opposed the policy.
According to her, at a period of growing convivial challenges in the country, many unemployed youths endeavor to earn their quotidian living, utilizing the BDCs.
“The timing is not right. Let the CBN suspend the policy for now until such a time when it is realisable,” she verbalized.
The Chairman, House Committee on Education, Mr. Aminu Suleiman, observed that the policy implicatively insinuated that a BDC operator would require about N70m to be in business.
“This policy is not authentic and we appeal to the CBN to invert it. We have received news from Lagos, Port Harcourt and Aba since yesterday that the blood pressure of a plethora of people has risen because of this development,” Suleiman integrated.
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