By Tunde John
Abuja (Sundiata Post) – The Coalition of Civil Society Groups has said that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) policy on deposit and withdrawals was aimed at enhancing the federal government cashless policies.
A statement signed by the president of the coalition, Bassey Etuk Williams and his secretary general, Abubakar Ibrahim and made available to newsmen in Abuja on Sunday said the policy will also discouraging cash deposits over bank counters and promote the use of electronic means that attracts no charges.
While not holding briefs for the Commercial Banks, the coalition said the cost banks acquired in dispensing their services especially in handling the cash deposits are usually in tons of Naira and which no doubt is not healthy for a thriving economy as we see through the processes that customers receive several unsolicited charges on transactions and other so called maintenance levy from the Banks.
The coalition said if the cashless policy is improved upon, where-in electronic transactions is been used, there is no doubt that the overall charges we receive as customers will reduce over time as the banks overhead charges of dispensing their services will be greatly reduced with time with effective adherence to cashless policy.
It said the threshold that the deposit and withdrawal charges will affect are better secured via electronic transactions, apart from safety of the concerned it also guarantees a relax atmosphere and confidence of transactions without drawing attention.
The coalition said ever since inception of electronic transfer, the system has been more secure, less costly and much faster.
The statement reads in part: ‘’The deposit and withdrawal policies deductions to be made over counter payment that is more than Five Hundred Thousand Naira and Three Million Naira for Individuals and corporate accounts is aimed at ensuring effectiveness of the cashless policies of the Federal Government, by discouraging cash deposits over bank counters but rather use the electronic means that attracts no charges.
‘’We thus, use this medium to call on all well-meaning Nigerians to embrace the policy as a means of encouraging cashless policy needed to drive the economy and same time separate legitimate transactions from questionable once, which the electronic transfer will reveal out over time.
‘’There is also insinuation on how the policy works, the wrong information been pushed out by those that probably do shady business needs to be corrected, as the said charges will only be applicable to a day transaction that is made over the counter and not per transactions as some people are insinuating. (So for example, if a sum of Ten Million naira was deposited over counter two times in a day, it will attract same 2% as it won’t be deducted twice.) If this is done via electronic transfer, it attracts no charges no matter the volume of the transactions. We cannot keep doing same thing same way and we expect same result, we all must rise to support this policy and serve as change agents that will propagate the good benefits some of which we mentioned here.
A cashless economy will also curb corruption as well reduce the expenses incurred in printing and transportation of currency notes across the states. It will also make tax payment easy as we know we have bad record of paying tax as a nation.’’
They, however, called on all well-meaning Nigerians to support this policy as a means of stopping economic saboteurs and reduce the overhead cost of currency production which the country always goes through.
