NIGERIA
Nigeria ’ s Money- Changers Are Going Underground
Lagos , Nigeria . Photographer : Peeter Viisimaa via Getty Images
NIGERIA ’ S INTERBANK MARKET SETS THE NAIRA ’ S OFFICIAL VALUE AND IS MEANT TO SERVE BUSINESSES
On the teeming streets of Lagos , the Nigerian mega-city of 15 million people , the once omnipresent money-changers are going underground .
On the teeming streets of Lagos , the Nigerian mega-city of 15 million people , the once omnipresent money-changers are going underground . They ’ ve become the latest target of authorities desperate to bolster the naira and crush a black market for foreign currency that ’ s boomed since the crash in oil prices strangled the inflow of dollars and battered the economy . This month , the central bank capped prices that non-bank dealers can charge their customers for foreign exchange , effectively pegging the black-market rate , with intelligence agents threatening to jail anyone who doesn ’ t comply .
That ’ s creating a parallel market within the black market , according to analysts at Lagos-based Afrinvest West Africa Ltd . One trader in the Lagos suburb of Surulere , who asked not to be identified as he feared arrest , said he would continue using the old rate with trusted customers and refuse to sell dollars to others . Anyone he doesn ’ t know may be a government spy , he said .
THE CENTRAL BANK HAS MADE SEVERAL ATTEMPTS TO DEFEND THE NAIRA AFTER IT PLUNGED IN LATE 2014 ALONG WITH CRUDE PRICES
26 Business Times Africa | 2016