The naira tumbled to 520 against the United States dollar at the parallel market on Monday as scarcity of the greenback continued to keep the exchange rate in a free fall mode.
The naira had closed at 516/dollar on Friday, after hitting 510/dollar and 507/dollar last Thursday and Tuesday, respectively.
Experts said demand for dollar for school fees payment overseas as well as Personal Travel Allowance by intending travellers was taking a toll on the exchange rate at the parallel market.
This came just as retail currency traders tried to digest the Central Bank of Nigeria’s new decision to sell dollars to retail users through commercial banks, Reuters reported.
The CBN is planning to sell $1m weekly to each of the country’s 21 commercial banks at a rate of N375 to clear a backlog of demand for retail users and try to narrow the premium between the official and black market rates.
Retail currency users buy dollars from licensed Bureaux de Change operators. However, due to the CBN’s inability to meet dollar demand, the BDCs have tended to source dollars from private sources and resell at a much higher margin, fuelling the black market.
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