Cashless Policy: CBN officials appear before Senate panel for screening, say worries will be addressed

Two officials of the Central Bank of Nigeria, on Friday, appeared before the Senate Committee on Banking and Finance on Friday and explained the new withdrawal limit introduced by the bank.

They are the bank’s Deputy Governor on Financial System Stability, Aishat Ahmad, and the Deputy Governor on Corporate Services, Edward Adamu.

The duo, who were recently re-appointed by President Muhammadu Buhari, were before the lawmakers for their screening exercise. It was during the rendezvous that the senators demanded an explanation for the policy – which has generated mixed reactions since the announcement.

PREMIUM TIMES reported how the apex bank, in a memo on Tuesday, announced a limit on cash withdrawal made by individuals and organisations with effect from 9 January, 2023.

The bank directed that over-the-counter cash withdrawals by individuals and corporate entities do not exceed N100, 000 and N500,000, respectively, per week. It also directed that only N200 and lower denominations should be loaded into banks’ ATM machines.

The CBN said maximum cash withdrawal per week via ATM should be N100,000 subject to a maximum of N20,000 cash withdrawal per day.

While the Senate on Wednesday, resolved to deliberate upon the subject next week, their counterparts at the lower chamber have summoned the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, for explanations. They also asked that the policy be reviewed.

Cashless policy not new

In her address, Ms Ahmad said the policy is not new. It was introduced in 2012 during the Goodluck Jonathan-led administration.

She said it started in Lagos and was later extended to Abuja and six other states in 2013.

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Although full implementation of the policy has not been carried out by CBN since then, she said its introduction at the time has brought a lot of transformation in the banking and payment system.

“Based on information available to CBN, the time for full implementation of the policy with proposed limit on cash withdrawals per week is now,” she explained. “Required infrastructure for its implementation in terms of financial access point system, mobile money, e-naira, etc, are available across the 774 local government councils in the country.”

She assured that all fears and worries being expressed by Nigerians on the new policy are seriously being taken care of because nobody will be left out.

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She however said that the apex bank is flexible and will be ready to accommodate opinions that will not make the policy strenuous to any category of Nigerians during implementation.

The Committee chairman, Uba Sani (APC, Kaduna Central), seemed satisfied by the explanation and asked the nominees to “take a bow and go” – after senators Orji Kalu and Danjuma Goje, moved that the nominees be excused.

“With the presentation made by… Ahmad on the planned limited cash withdrawal, required information on the merits of the policy has been given and will be communicated to the Senate in plenary through our report,” he said.

“…Having earlier been screened before serving their first tenures, they need not to again as unanimously agreed by members of the committee. They should therefore take a bow and go.”

It is not clear if the Senate will go ahead with plans to debate a motion on the new policy after the explanations from the CBN nominees.