Forex ban: Ineffective policy implementation will lead to artificial scarcity – ASSBIFI

Joy Obakeye

The Association of Senior Staff of Banks, Insurance and other financial institutions, ASSBIFI, has commended the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for the recent ban on the sales of forex to the Bureau De Change (BDCs).

Reacting to the ban at a forum with Labour Writers Association of Nigeria (LAWAN), President of ASSBIFI, Oyinkan Olasanya, stated that the policy is acceptable and a welcome development, but the fear remains in implementation, stressing that a failure in proper implementation, will lead to artificial scarcity.

According to her, “all policies the government is bringing on board concerning the survival of Naria, are wonderful policies, but the problem we have and will still be having is implementation of policies in Nigeria.

“However, we are concerned over the implementation. As we all know that one of the problems, we have in this country is policy inconsistency.

“This is because if care is not taken, some BDCs will still be operating illegally, hence, there won’t be adequate control. And this may lead to scarcity of forex.

“If this happens, it would create some challenges in the market as commercial banks might not be able to meet the forex demands of importers and this can negatively affect the forex trading market.

On the issue of casualisation in the financial institution, she disclosed that casualisation of workers and productivity still remain major problems in the financial institutions.

“Our major problem have been casualization, because in every bank, every financial institution in Nigeria today, almost everyone are casual workers. 80% percent of them are casual workers. It’s as high as 80% so for that reason, we have issue with casualization.”

Speaking further, she explained that compensation for casual workers is too low, remuneration, dignity of labour is nothing to write home about.

“Presently, the Labour Law Act made provisions that there will be contract staff, but our battle is that those contract staff should be allowed to have dignity of labour and be adequately compensated.

“The casual workers are not employees of the institution; there is a third party that provides them and these providers are also registered by the Ministry of Labour.

“These providers give the casual workers two-year employment; at the end of the two years, the contract is renewed with a new term,” she said.