Exchange problems blamed on Central Bank
Eze Onyeka, Benin City
Meanwhile special arrangements have been made for the salaries of members of the Armed Forces and Police to be paid in cash at the end of the month irrespective of rank!The Central Bank of Nigeria has been blamed, openly at last, for being primarily responsible for the problems that have plagued the ordinary man since the currency exchange exercise began on 23 April 1984.
Lt-Col. David Mark, the military Governor of Niger State in a radio Lagos programme on June 3 1984 said that the Central Banks should be held responsible for the naira squeeze in the country which is slowly but surely bringing the commercial life of the nation to a halt.
The military Governor admitted that the Central Bank had failed to make enough money available to customers throughout the country with the result that customers, especially the rural poor, who deposited money into the banks are facing untold hardships.
For some time now, there has been going on, a "blaming contest" between the Central Bank and the commercial banks as to who is to be held responsible for the present naira scarcity in the country which has resulted in the commercial banks rationing the amount of money a customer can withdraw from his account.
While the Central Bank maintains that it had released enough cash to the commercial banks for distribution to its customers, the commercial banks have also been consistent in their denial of having been given enough.
Meanwhile, however, the people continue to suffer.
Most banks throughout the country give out between N50.00 and N200.00 to each customer whenever they have money - a situation which is usually far and between.
The only exceptions so far to my knowledge, are Kaduna and Ondo States where it has been reported that some banks, whenever they have the money, give up to N1,000.00 and N5,000.00 respectively.
Finance Minister Soleye
Up till the time of writing, workers whose April and May salaries were paid into their accounts in the banks have not succeeded in withdrawing enough for their daily needs. And with no money to spend, a lot of workers have been reduced to eating mangoes, bananas and peanuts to keep body and soul together.
To obtain even the ration of N50.00 or N100.00 a worker has to leave home around 12 midnight to queue, when money is available, until the next morning 8.30 am when the banks open and is given a number which allows him into the bank's premises. And it is not unusual for such a person to find that by the time it gets to his turn, there would be no money left for him to withdraw.
In between the time that the banks open, and when he gets to the cashier, he will have to contend with the pushing, shoving, fighting and being caned with "Koboko" by the police or soldiers brought in to maintain order at the banks.
It is again not unusual for people to sleep at the bank's premises for some times three days or even a week before they can withdraw some money.
The result of all these sufferings has been a serious loss of confidence in the banking system by the general public. A lot of people have now been refusing to deposit their money in the banks, preferring instead, to risk it being stolen by keeping it in their pillow cases and under their mattresses.
The result of this reaction has been that the banks are no more getting deposits all they do these days is to pay out to customers. A commercial bank which has since May 9, 1984 paid out more than N1 million has received only N20,000.00 in deposits.
The squeeze has also affected business and industry badly. Productivity is now next to nil. Workers spend most of their time queueing at the banks. Business entrepreneurs are being forced to close down their businesses because apart from not being able to pay their workers' salaries they have to contend with a flood of workers' excuses to go and queue at the banks to withdraw money.
On 29 May 1984 the Nigerian Television Authority in Benin, reported the case of a middle-aged woman who coll- apsed at a court premises because she had not eaten for three days. Her situation is symptomatic of a large majority of ordinary people in the country as a result of the naira squeeze.
Most schools are half-empty because parents just have no cash to pay their children's fees, and the schools auth-orities would not accept cheques because they would not be able to withdraw cash from the banks for their purchases and suppliers would also not accept cheques because they will face the same problems in withdrawing cash from the banks and on goes the vicious circle! Some boarding schools in Bendel state have had to be converted to day schools because of the cash squeeze.
The result of all these sufferings has been a serious loss of confidence in the banking system by the general public. A lot of people have now refused to deposit their money in the banks, preferring instead, to risk it being stolen by keeping it in their pillow-cases and under their mattresses.
Meanwhile however, special arrangements have been made for the salaries of members of the Armed Forces and Police to be paid in cash at the end of the month irrespective of rank! An Enugu bank manager I spoke to jokingly told me that they have been instructed to consider the Armed Forces as having a 'first change' on any cash that they will receive at the end of the month.
In a further observation, the people benefitting from the squeeze are the bank officials who have been doing brisk business collecting commissions from customers before making payments to them. These commissions range between 10% and 20% on the face value of the amount being withdrawn - the bigger the amount, the higher the commission.
This "business" of commission before withdrawal has assumed such huge dimensions that the Rivers State Military Governor, Police Commissioner Fidelis Onyakilome has had to warn bank officials to desist from the practice or risk being arrested, detained and charged under the Anti-sabotage Decree.
The Military Governor of Imo State, Brigadier Ike Nwachukwu has however, in a radio and televison broadcast, appealed to the people of his state for "patience" over the currency shortage in the country.
He said the government was aware of the present hardships which the shortage of cash was causing to the people especially civil servants and sympathises with them, but declared that the "true test of patriotism is endurance in the face of temporary difficulties."
It does not appear though, that a lot of Nigerians share Brigadier Nwachukwu's brand of "patriotism" on an empty stomach. The consolation for the mass of people is that the culprit of the naira imbrioglio has now been identified as the Central Bank, and the hungry folks would not now be obliged to look for the culprit in two places! Meanwhile, the struggle at the banks for the almighty naira continues "koboko" or no "koboko".
