…Strategise ahead Yuletide, New Year demands
Matthew Don
Nigeria’s Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) may mean well to stop the bastardizing of the local currency (Naira) but it needs to do more to fish out those bankers whose officials are supplying the currency to the street hawkers without qualms.
“They are constantly making cool money from this”, a new note hawker in one of the eventful areas within Ikeja Lagos State told ArmadaNews.com.
Because the habit of spraying money has been with Nigerians for decades, these bank officials, through their agents, usually charge as high as N200 on every N1,000 worth of any Note bought. The demand for N100 Note is higher.
He linked the supply of the new notes (Mints) to some banks’ regional operational heads and their branch managers who work with the Cash Officers to create the illegal but seamless transactions.
The currency hawkers would visit the banks with bagful of dirty Naira notes in exchange for new ones. The bank officials operating unofficially would collect an agreed service charge from the hawkers.
Going round the streets where they hawk the new notes, they sell to users at a premium and a reasonable percentage goes to those involved in the transactions process.
Unfortunately, in their desperate move to retain their perceived “oil wells”, though unknowingly to the bank board and management, their staff, particularly the Regional Operations Services Officers, pull the reasonable shots in their recommendation on who occupies these vital positions that aid their illegality within banks. Cash handling is an operational role within the supervision of the Regional Operations Services Officers.
“It is very rare to see a branch cash officer than is not in good terms with them”, a source privy to this dirty deal said.
When it comes to operations, the Regional Operations Services Officers make recommendations for promotions, demotion, re-posting and most times, reassignment in line with their selfish interests.
“Which bank can I get new money, I have tried like four banks and they kept saying I can’t get”, a bank customer asked on the sideline of a an informal meeting, but got reply like “If you need it that badly, just go to any event centre or any ‘owambe’ party or wedding, you would see those women selling mint money”.
In Ikeja region of Lagos, both tier-1 and tier 2 banks are culprits, according to information gathered from their currency hawkers.
“Why are you asking me how I get the money? Did I steal it? Go to the banks and ask them,” she said. They business is growing bigger by day as the hawkers devise ways of avoiding arrest.
“I usually don’t accept cash because of the way policemen always chase us but I was forced to learn the rudiment of using a PoS in order to survive”, another female hawker said.
Many bank customers said they have severally asked for new notes across the counters of such banks like the United Bank for Africa (UBA), First Bank, Access Bank, StanbicIBTC, Heritage Bank, among others within Ikeja, Lagos but they hardly get.
According to them, most of the new notes from such banks, the customers claimed, rather find their ways into the streets for margins that are of great interests to the banks’ regional and branch heads of operations.
The House of Representatives had in their July plenary mandated its Committee on Banking and Currency to investigate the alleged black-marketing of mint naira notes on the streets. The House also urged the Central Bank of Nigeria to commence the immediate withdrawal of mutilated, dirty and oiled notes from circulation and replace them with new ones.
Moving the motion on the “Need to Investigate the Sale of Mint Naira Notes and Sources of Black-Marketing of the Naira,” Adekoya Adesegun Abdel-Majid from Ogun State, said mint naira notes sold on the streets were perpetually unavailable in banks.
Aside weekends when there are occasions such as wedding and birthdays, other festive periods like the Christmas, Easter, and the Sallah by the Muslim faithful.
The CBN recently placed a ban on spraying money at parties, saying that anyone caught in the act will pay a fine of N50,000 or risk six months’ imprisonment.
Last month, Ishaq Akintola, the Director of Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC), an NGO urged the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to enforce the ban on sale of new naira notes at parties.
Akintola, who made the plea in Lagos said that the hawkers were aiding and abetting “spraying” of money at parties.
“MURIC calls the attention of the CBN to those who sell new naira notes. They are the ones who aid and abet spraying at parties. The Police should be empowered to seize such money and return it to government treasury. Those who desecrate the naira deserve punishment,” Akintola.