The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, has said that the Apex Bank will not abandon its new Cash withdrawal limit policy which is to take effect from 9 January 2023.
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| Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele and the President of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari. Photo: @cenbank |
Emefiele is speaking in response to the demand by the members of the House of Representatives that the policy be abandoned.
However, while speaking with Journalists following a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari, the CBN Governor said, the Apex Bank will continue with the policy.
Emefiele further said, the CBN has the full support of the President for the new policy.
President Buhari “was very very happy and said we should carry on our work, no need to fear, no need to bother about anybody”, Emefiele revealed.
He buttressed that, the new Cash withdrawal limit policy was not targeted at anybody, but created for the development of the nation’s economy. He also clarified that some details of the policy may be edited after the policy becomes functional.
For proper explanation of the new policy, the House of Representatives have decided that the CBN Governor should not hesitate to appear before it next Thursday.
This is coming after Engr Magaji Da’u Aliyu of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) representing Birninkudu/Buji federal constituency in Jigawa State at the lower chamber moved a motion of matter of urgent public importance on Thursday during plenary.
He expressed resentment towards the new policy, arguing it will have adverse effects on small businesses which depends hugely on cash for their transactions among other reasons.
Aliyu said: “Although the Central Bank of Nigeria has the right to issue monetary policies on the Nigerian economy to be able to guide and direct the economy to the right part of recovery and growth, however, the new policy rolled out by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) will definitely have a negative impact on the already dwindling economy, and further weakens the value of the Naira as Nigerians may resolve to use dollars and other currencies as a means of trading and thus further devalue Naira and weakens the economy.
“It is good to have a cashless policy but we seem to be borrowing ideas and policies from other countries that are far ahead of us. We are comparing ourselves with the United States and the United Kingdom. These people are far ahead of us. We will get there one day but this type of policy disturbs the people that voted for us.
“The issue affects everyone, most of our people are in rural areas and everything is being done in Naira and cash. And somebody will wake up and make a policy that will start tomorrow, no consultation.”
Emefiele, answering questions from journalists after his meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari, said: “Almost three to four occasions we have had to step down the policy because we felt that there is a need for us to prepare ourselves and deepen our payment system infrastructure in Nigeria. Between 2012 and now 2022, almost about 10 years, we believe that a lot of electronic channels have been put in place that will aid people in conducting banking and financial service transactions in Nigeria.
“We have 1.4 million super agents that are all over different parts of the country, all local governments, and all villages in this country and I have told my colleagues, some of their names are already on the CBN website and we will publish all the names of all the super agents and having super agent, which is different from the banks, which is different from microfinance banks, which is different from other financial institutions.
“Having 1.4 million of them is as good as having 1.4 million banking points where people can conduct services and we think, Nigeria as a big country, the biggest economy in Africa, that we need to leapfrog into the cashless economy.”
In a memo issued on Tuesday, the CBN had ordered all banks and other financial institutions to ensure that over-the-counter withdrawals by corporate entitites and individuals do not exceed ₦500,000 and ₦100,000 respectively per week.
Also, only ₦200 and lower denominations should be loaded into banks’ ATM machines.
