Senate to question CBN chiefs over cash withdrawal limits

Following the Central Bank of Nigeria’s latest policy on cash withdrawal limit, the Senate is set to grill two deputy governors of the apex bank on Friday, December 9, 2022.

The lawmakers want the CBN chiefs to explain its new monetary policy that restricts over-the-counter cash withdrawal by individuals and organisations to N100,000 and N500,000, respectively, per week.

The policy also limits cash withdrawals via point-of-sale machines and automated teller machines to N20,000 daily and N100,000 weekly, respectively.

The CBN announced this development on Tuesday, December 6, 2022, in a memo signed by its Director of Banking Supervision, Haruna Mustafa.

The policy will become effective on January 9, 2023.

However, the Senate while deliberating on the policy on Wednesday, December 7, 2022, maintained that there was a need to debate the policy on the floor of the red chamber.

The Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, directed the Senate Committee on Banking to question the two re-appointed deputy governors of the CBN, Aisha Ahmad, and Edward Adamu on Friday, on the new cash withdrawal policy.

Earlier, Senator Philip Aduda (PDP FCT) and Senator Gabriel Suswam (PDP Benue North-East) had argued that the senate should deliberate on the policy, but Lawan favoured the idea that the Committee on Banking should meet with the CBN chiefs first.

“As good as the cashless policy may be, it shouldn’t be jumped at, at once. The way the CBN is going about the policy, many Nigerians would be cut off and that won’t be accepted. Motion on the policy will be thoroughly debated in the Senate on Tuesday next week after adequate information has been gotten on it,” he said.

The Senate President also said that the newly re-appointed deputy CBN governors would be screened between Thursday and Monday so that by Tuesday, the lawmakers would have been equipped with enough information to raise a motion in support or shoot down the policy, The Punch reports.