By Josef Omorotionmwan
DISTINGUISHED First Banker: Barely 41 days ago, this column carried the piece titled “Bank Charges As Criminal Overkill”. In that piece, we showed enough excitement at the prospect of one of our own attaining the enviable position of Governor of the apex bank in the land. In earnest, that article was intended to aid agenda-setting for your high office.
Understandably, you were too new in office and too busy to be distracted by any journalist inclinations; hence it has now become necessary to adopt a more direct approach in revisiting the same issues with a few modifications based on recent developments.
The CBN has just decided to re-introduce the Automated Teller Machine, ATM, withdrawal charge or fee, which was scrapped a few months ago by your predecessor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi.
For one thing, it is bad politics to go into office and immediately begin to dismantle the policy thrusts of your predecessor. For another, it would be recalled that Sanusi did not just embark on that policy. Rather, it was foisted on him by the Senate and House of Representatives Committees on Banking and Currency. In the circumstance, it is doubtful if you can face an impending war against the entire people.
It is, however, not too late in the day to beat a retreat from the repugnant decision before the National Assembly releases its claws on you.
Kwame Nkrumah (1909-1972) shows by happy illustration that the best way of looking at the future is to keep an eye on the past. It is instructive that your immediate past predecessors – Prof. Charles Chukwuma Soludo and Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi – were men of very strong character and independent judgment. You cannot be different. Neither can you allow your colleagues at the commercial banks to destroy your future by permitting them to push you around with their shylock profit-maximization ploys. After all, you have the rest of your life to live with yourself.
Morning shows the day. What should be of interest to Nigerians now is to hear that you are fighting relentlessly to reinvigorate the value of the Naira by arresting its gradual glide into worthlessness; addressing the inflation in the economy by pulling it down from the rooftops where it currently resides; and ensuring that the ATM centres function efficiently instead of the comatose machines that now litter everywhere.
The banks are giving us a raw deal in every direction. Admittedly, the Commission On Turnover, COT, is as old as the banking industry itself. Over time, the COT has become a major source of revenue to the banks. We are, however, worried that “Vat on COT” is also a debit on the customer at the end of the month.
COT is a revenue source for the banks; while, like any other tax, Vat on COT is revenue to the Government. The banks collect COT from their customers and also pass the tax burden on this revenue to the same customers. This is double jeopardy. It is also stealing by trick and the very height of economic injustice. This is one issue that Mr. Governor will do well to address very quickly.
As the repression continues, the customer might soon begin to challenge the rationale behind the COT, particularly when in the course of the month, he pays for virtually every service rendered to him by the bank – he pays for inter- and intra-bank transfers, stamp duty, statement of account, alert charges, etc.
Elsewhere, cheque books are given to customers as inducements. But Nigeria remains perhaps the only country where cheque books are acquired at exorbitant costs. Even where secondary and tertiary institutions of learning are able to offer those bulky answer papers free to their students, our banks still charge heavily for those pieces of paper called cheques.
How much fairness would the bank customer expect when policy issues affecting banks/customer relations are considered in the Bankers’ Committee where he has no iota or representation? A cursory look at the composition of the Bankers’ Committee shows that it is indeed the sellers’ market: the CBN Governor is chairman; each Commercial Bank is a member; Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation, NDIC, (member); Chartered Institute of Bankers (member); Financial Institutions Training Centre, FITC, (member); and Banking Supervision Department of CBN (Secretary).
Equity demands the quick inclusion of the Association of Bank Customers of Nigeria on the Bankers’ Committee.
We are also not in a hurry to forget the aspect of corporate prostitution, which has become a way of life for many of the new generation banks, so called. Mr. Governor, wouldn’t you like to be remembered as the man who abolished this obnoxious practice?
There is still another evil lurking around – the open sale of new Naira notes on our streets. The banks have become places for morbid, tattered and deformed notes, fit only for cremation. The crisp Naira notes called variously by such names as mint, chassis, etc, have since migrated to the street corners and other social gatherings, where they are sold to “sprayers” at exorbitant prices, without the least consideration for the embarrassment and infamy it brings on the nation.
Come to think of it, what are the possible implications of this nefarious practice for inflation? Into which category of banking do we place it? These should be of interest to Mr. Governor.
From every standpoint, the law-abiding citizen in Nigeria is on his own. Nobody cares for him; and this easily lends credence to the thinking that crime pays. Most civil society organizations exist to protect criminal elements – from the point of arrest to the court; down to the prisons and even post incarceration arrangements for rehabilitation!
Mr. Governor, Sir, history beckons at you. These are some of the societal ills plaguing our financial world, which if checked, will not only make yours a most successful tenure, but also put you permanently on the path of righteousness, depicting the true meaning of your name – Do not misbehave!
Please accept our best wishes.
