Three commercial banks have confirmed to Politico that there is a huge shortage of the United States dollars in the country.
It followed the reintroduction by the central bank of the non-withdrawal of foreign exchange by foreign bank account holders unless they are withdrawing their salaries paid by international organisations or are diamond dealers.
The banks, which spoke to Politico on condition of anonymity, said that contrary to what a central bank official told the BBC that they put up a US$ 1 million auction and that only about US$ 100,000 had been in demand from the commercial banks, they had been in dire need of for-ex without the central banks being available to provide them with cash.
The Director of Financial Market at the Bank of Sierra Leone, Ibrahim Lamin had said that there existed “no restrictions for the payment for goods and services done through the banking system” with the banks not exhausting the amount the central bank had out up.
Traders have also complained that the commercial banks keep raising the selling price of foreign currencies and even asking them repeatedly to report later as there is a shortage. Some of them said they had stopped taking their foreign exchange to the banks “because we are only now allowed to withdraw in leone and we have to buy the dollar or Euro which costs us a lot of difference in exchange rate.”
There have been allegations that some black market money changers known as Dollar Boys have resorted to travelling to Guinea to buy especially US dollars and bringing them into the country to sell on the streets to traders.
(C) 25 February 2014
