A member of the House of Representatives, Mark Gbilla,has called on the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, to face perform his responsibility as the head of the apex bank in Nigeria.
The lawmaker Gwer-East and Gwer-West federal constituency of Benue State, stated this on Channel’s TV programme, Politics Today on Thursday.
According to him, “in spite of speculations that the policy would curb the amount of money in circulation, and the issue of vote-buying, the House didn’t expect the CBN to do the job of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and called on the governor to focus on the mandates of his office.”
He also stated that the policy was not to the advantage of the people, who needed cash for daily transactions.
“Fundamentally, we have come to realise, this is in our own opinion, a draconian policy. It’s like taking a hammer to kill a fly. We realise that it is not to the advantage of our people, who are subsistence farmers, who are petty traders, who transact daily with cash”.
It would be recalled that the CBN announced a new cash directive which restricts over-the-counter cash withdrawal by individuals and organisations to N100,000 and N500,000, respectively, per week.
According to a memo signed Tuesday by the CBN’s Director of Banking Supervision, Haruna Mustafa, withdrawals above the thresholds would attract processing fees of five per cent and 10 per cent, respectively, for individuals and corporate entities going forward.
In addition, third-party cheques above N50,000 shall not be eligible for OTC payment while extant limits of N10m on clearing cheques still remain.
The circular also directed banks to load only N200 and lower denominations into their ATMs and restricted withdrawal to N20, 000 per day from ATMs.
