The Central Bank of Nigeria and over 2500 Bureau De
Change operators in the country are in fresh battle
over the need to pay N250,000 as annual licence
renewal fee before January 31, 2014.
The central bank had, during its review of the BDC
sub-sector last year, raised the licence renewal fee
from N10,000 to N250,000.
Findings by our correspondent showed that the CBN
officials had asked some BDCs to ensure the amount
is paid before the end of January.
However, BDCs operators under the aegis
Association of Bureau De Change Operators on
Monday said the central bank was not being fair to
the BDC subsector.
The Acting President , ABCON, Mr. Aminu Gwadabe,
said the association had written to the central bank,
seeking for a review of the amount to about N50,000.
However, he said the central bank had yet to respond
to the letter.
The president said, “We have written to the CBN to
review the licence renewal fee. We told them that
increasing it from N10,000 to N250,000 was too
much. The CBN has yet to respond to our letter. All
we are hearing now is that we should go and pay
N250,000 before the end of January. That is too
much. That means almost N750m will be raked from
about 3000 BDCs in the country. Just last year, we
paid N35m each. This amounted to over N100bn
from this same sub-sector.
“This N35m can only generate three per cent interest
rate for us. With what the cost of fund is saying now,
how do we cope? For some of our members who
may have gone to borrow that money from the bank,
how will they cope? Yet the CBN sells only $15,000 to
each BDC every week; that is $60,000 in a month.
How do you make money to cope? Our members are
complaining and something has to be done about
this.”
Gwadabe, who said it would be difficult for all its
members to raise the amount, insisted the CBN had
to review its position to save the sector from
imminent collapse.
A CBN spokesman, Mr. Abudul Isa, said the CBN had
last year issued a guideline on the N250,000 licence
renewal fee. He said the date stated on the guideline
was sacrosanct except the CBN gave the BDC another
letter to change it.
“Since there is no response from the CBN to their
letter, it means the status quo in the guideline
remains.”