Extra Charges: Banks Kick As CBN Recoups N50bn

.Farmers get N43.92bn ABP’s funding

Hard hit by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)’s moves that have recovered over N50 billion from them as excessive charges on unsuspecting customers, some Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) are currently screaming blue murder against the apex bank.

However, the CBN has warned that it will no longer be business as usual for banks that deliberately flout existing rules by imposing hidden charges to defraud customers of their hard-earned money.

Competent sources told Forefront that the banks are upset that the apex bank has moved against what hitherto provided slush funds for their operational indulgence and other extra-curricular activities.

“Given the huge recoveries so far made by the CBN, most banks have been shut out of a clear source of free funds that saw some of their top managers living larger than life off the customers’ earnings”, one of the big banks’ chief said.   

But CBN’s Acting Director, Corporate Communications, Mr Isaac Okorafor said the apex bank is not deterred in its resolve to sanitise the system and ensure banks do not turn their customers into cheap money making machines through so-called service charges.

He said the apex bank’s Consumer Protection Department has, in the last three years, retrieved  over N50 billion of bank customers monies after investigating complaints of excess or illegal charges by their bank.

Okorafor said at the on-going Abuja International Trade fair on Tuesday that as part of measures to curb these excesses, the CBN has opened up channels for customers to access approved charges expected from their banks. 

He said apart from the CBN website, the banking public is expected to promptly contact CBN’s Consumer Protection Department and report incidences of hidden or needless charges forced on them by DMBs for necessary action.

According to him, the CBN would continuously work to ensure that unsuspecting customers are protected from the whims and caprices of some financial institutions that have constantly perpetrated unwholesome practices in the banking system.

On the Anchor Borrowers Programme (ABP), the CBN’s agriculture intervention programme, the apex bank spokesman said about N43.92 billion has so far been disbursed to local farmers to drive the process.

Okorafor explained that the programme is a partnership that involves 13 participating financial institutions with over 200,000 small holder farmers from 29 states.

Furthermore, he said about 233,000 hectares of farmland were currently being cultivated under  the programme, covering eight commodities and listed them as rice, cotton, soya-beans, wheat, maize, poultry, groundnuts and cassava as well as fish farming.

He said the ABP is focused on providing farm inputs in kind and cash for farm labour to small holder farmers aimed at boosting production of the selected commodities; stabilizing inputs supply to agro processors and addressing the country’s negative balance of payments on food. 

The apex bank image maker said that “at harvest, the small holder farmers supplies his or her produce to the Agro-processor, who pays the cash equivalent to the farmer’s account. We cannot let our farmers go hungry while we enrich farmers from other countries. This is why we said for some certain items, which are 41 in number, if you want to import any of them, go and look for your own foreign exchange.”

“As a complimentary measure, we put in place the Anchor borrowers programme for agriculture to make farmers rise up and fill the space and gap created by the non-importation of those items. The programme has given us over two million tons of rice when our national demand is at about six million tons. This has taken our national output to about four million tons in the first year”, Okorafor said, adding that the CBN is hopeful that there will at least be another two million tons of rice this year to take to figure up to 6 million tons.

He said, “We are envisaging that by this time next year, Nigeria should be self-sufficient in rice production”, stating that the CBN has 17 intervention programmes meant to further position the economy on the path of sufficiency through non-oil exports and foreign exchange conservation

Listed among these programmes are Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme Fund (AFGSF); N200 billion SMEs Restructuring and Re-financing Facility; N300 billion power and airline intervention fund as well as N200 billion Commercial Agricultural Credit Scheme. Others include Nigeria Electricity Market Stabilisation Facility; Paddy Aggregation Scheme; Export Rediscounting and Refinancing Facility, Export Stimulation facility; and the Youth Entrepreneurship Development Programme.

Restating the bank’s resolve to constantly evolve proactive policies and schemes aimed at rejuvenating the Nigerian economy and ensure it stays strong and productive through non-oil exports, Okorafor said

Also speaking at the Fair, Second Deputy President, Abuja Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ABUCCIMA), Al-Mujtaba Abubakar pleaded with CBN to review some policy stands with adverse impacts on small and medium businesses.

According to him, though ABUCCIMA lauds CBN’s active roles in managing the economy out of recession, “we want to emphasise that the subsisting high lending rate is stifling production and productivity of the real sector”, adding that; “The Micro Small and Medium Entreprises (MSMEs) have been on the receiving end of this. We therefore urge the CBN to reconsider its policy stand in this regard.”