Abuja-The United States dollar is set to crash further this week as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) plans yet another round of interventions in the interbank market.
There were indications at the weekend that the CBN planned to pump in more foreign exchange into the interbank space to meet the demands of genuine wholesale and retail customers as well as strengthen the value of the Naira against other international currencies.
The planned move by the CBN, sources say, will further firm up the Naira against other currencies as the exchange rates of the greenback and the United Kingdom Pound Sterling continue to move southwards.
Investigations revealed that the US dollar, Euro and the Pound, exchanged at the parallel market over the weekend at the rates of N375, N405 and N475, respectively, with the anticipation that the figures will further nosedive this week.
Speaking at the weekend, the Acting Director, Corporate Communications Department, CBN, Isaac Okorafor, confirmed the plan to inject more foreign exchange into the forex market.
According to him, the move underscored the commitment of the CBN to sustain the tempo of liquidity in the interbank market for the sake of different categories of genuine end-users.
He therefore urged authentic prospective customers to freely approach their respective banks with relevant requirements to apply for the purchase of foreign exchange, assuring that the banks had adequate supplies to meet genuine needs.
Okorafor also warned forex dealers against engaging in acts capable of disrupting the current smooth operations of the forex market, stressing that the CBN would penalize any organization found guilty of bending the rules.
It will be recalled that during the last intervention of the CBN in the interbank FOREX market, authorized dealers were only able to pick up about $82 million out of the $100 million offered by the CBN. Over $1 billion dollars has so far been offered and released by the CBN in the past one month of its intervention.
