Banks counter CBN on availability of new Naira notes

Commercial Banks on Friday countered claims by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on the availability of the new Naira notes.

The banks defended their position on the matter when they appeared before the House of Representatives ad hoc committee investigating the scarcity of the new notes and the January 31 deadline given by the apex bank for the withdrawal of the old notes from the circulation.

Hadiza Ambursa, an official of Access Bank who represented the bank’s managing director, said they only got 10 percent of the money deposited with the CBN.

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She said: “We are not getting the money as quickly as we want them. We only get 10 percent of the money deposited. We are paying and collecting money. We are also loading our ATM.”

Jimoh Garuba, the representative of Sterling Bank, said the bank receive allocation weekly from CBN but had no sufficient fund to meet its customers’ demand.

“As we speak, our Automated Teller Machine (ATM) is dispensing what we received which fluctuate most time,” Garuba said.

He said his bank received a minimum of N150 million from the CBN weekly to be shared among its branches in Abuja.

He added that the bank received N150 million weekly in Kaduna which is shared among its branches across the 36 states of federation.

”We received N100 million weekly and we can only dispense through ATM and not through the counter

“If we are to go through the counter to dispense the money, the allocation will go in less down 10 minutes,” the Sterling Bank official added.

He said the percentage of money received from the CBN varies on weekly basis, adding that it receive 80 percent of what it deposited in Abuja and less than 10 percent in Kano.

Garuba blamed the shortage of the new Naira notes in circulation on the CBN cashless policy.

Arerepade Akagwe, the representatives of the United Bank for Africa (UBA), said the bank had taken 70 percent of the old money it deposited with the CBN.

The Chairman of the committee, Alhassan Ado-Doguwa, said the bank appearance before the committee was not a witch hunt but a fact-finding exercise.