Governor of the Bank of Guyana, Dr. Gobind Ganga, has reported that there is no shortage of foreign currency at commercial banks.
A number of business owners have been complaining in the past few days that they have been facing difficulties in making overseas payments through their banks because of a reported shortage of foreign currency. One businessman said it appears as though foreign currency is only available in very small amounts, which would be bad news for businesses that have to pay overseas suppliers via US dollar money transfers.
In a telephone interview with News Source, the Central Bank Governor said based on the information provided to him daily, there is an adequate amount of foreign currency at the banks.
“We know for sure that there is enough in the system. Some banks do have, some might not have, and it happens, maybe something that happens every other day, whenever the flows come in they are able to satisfy their demand, and the flows go from bank to bank…I usually have that information every day, so we know who and what is happening out there…there is no shortage on a gross perspective, but you might go to an individual bank now and maybe that bank does not have sufficient funds, but that does not mean that it wouldn’t have funds in a day or two or whenever”, he said.
One month ago, the Central Bank injected a total of US$85 million into the local market, to ease complaints about a shortage then. Dr. Ganga said that money was more than enough to address the problem. It is suspected that some banks may be hoarding the foreign currency for some large customers, and that may be the reason why some customers are being informed of a shortage in foreign currency.
“There is this issue of hoarding, the money was available and everybody collected and they did what they had to do, and more than they had to do. For example, when the money became available and instead of paying for one shipment, they paid for three and four shipments, so when you go to the bank now, that money which should be available to others also, they can’t have access to it”, he said.
The Bank of Guyana Governor said he has not received any reports of any shortage at this time. However, it was noted that the Central Bank will continue to monitor the situation.
