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Worsening Dollar Scarcity Threatens Overseas Education

With the worsen dollar scarcity in the country, parents whose children school abroad are having difficulty accessing foreign exchange (forex) and this is threatening the completion of their children's education.


Although the Central Bank of Nigeria Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, recently revealed that the apex bank spent about $2 billion annually on foreign school fees remittances, the new forex regime appears incapable of meeting such a huge demand any more.

Average weekly dollar turnover on the interbank forex market (spot) has dropped to $600 million presently compared with the $2 billion available as at August last year. Most parents are left with the option of purchasing dollar from the parallel market at N423 to the dollar as at Friday.

Only few of the banks even sold dollars to their customers for payment of school fees for their wards abroad.

For instance, the returns of forex utilisation published by Diamond Bank Plc last week showed that the bank which is one of the leading financial institutions in forex deals sold only $918,752 to 18 customers.
Also, First City Monument Bank Limited’s (FCMB) returns on forex utilisation showed that the bank sold only $452,918.26 to four of its customers. In the same vein, FirstBank Nigeria Limited, which sold dollars to a total of 434 customers in the week under review, did not record any sale to customers for the payment of school fees abroad.

However, FirstBank sold dollars to customers for the importation of petroleum products, raw materials, Bureau De Change (BDC) operators, estacode, personal travel allowance and business travel allowance.

But Zenith Bank Plc, whose returns of forex utilisation showed that the bank sold some amount of the greenback to a few of its customers for payment of tuition fees abroad, recorded reduced dollar sales in the week under review, which is a reflection of the scarcity of dollars in the system. Its returns showed that it sold $28,844,498.05 to customers, as against the about $50 million deals weekly which it used to report.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is still the major supplier of forex in the market.


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