Enforcers from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) have discovered N6 million of the new Naira notes allegedly hoarded in the Bank road branch of Sterling Bank in Ado Ekiti, capital of Ekiti State.
The stack of cash is believed to be allocation from the CBN to the bank over a period of two weeks.
In a trending video on social media, a man who identified himself as Oluwole Owoeye, a Deputy Director of CBN, while monitoring the distribution of the new Naira notes in the State, was seen questioning the bank officials on why they have not uploaded the cash into their Automated Teller Machines (ATMs), despite having six of the machines in order.
The CBN director also announced a fine of N1 million for each day the fund remained in the bank’s custody.
The CBN official said: “I am currently at Sterling Bank, on Bank road, as part of the new Naira notes monitoring compliance with the guidelines by CBN.
“They have N6 million, which they collected from the bank for almost two weeks, they have not disbursed any. They said they are yet to configure their ATMs, I do not know why that and I have brought attention to the penalty clause of N1 million per day, because they have five ATMs here, they have no reason for keeping this money.
“The zonal service manager, Tunde Onipede, promised that by 10:00am latest tomorrow (Monday), because I told him by latest 10:00 am I’ll be here and I want to see the machines dispensing this money.
“What is the name again? Olumide Owolabi (Service Manager, Ado) & Motunrayo Babayele. My name is Oluwole Owoeye and I am a deputy director of CBN.
Some politicians have accused the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, of trying to sabotage the circulation of the new notes for political reasons, but the CBN, in turn accused commercial banks of sabotaging its efforts to make the new Naira notes available to customers.
The Deputy Director, banking supervision department, CBN Lagos, Kayode Makinde, while addressing journalists in Abeokuta, Ogun State last week Tuesday, asked the public to blame the commercial banks over the scarcity of the new notes, saying the apex bank has done its part.
He said: “This is the third week of ensuring strict implementation of our directive as regards the issuance of new notes. We have banks, agents and super agents circulate new notes in the economy. The experience has been mixed, we saw some trying to hoard new notes, we compelled them to upload into ATM terminals, and others had poor cash management.
“From our experience, CBN should not be blamed but commercial banks for scarcity. We caught some of them, with new notes in their vault, and we compelled them to upload them to their machines. We told them that instead of trying to ration, upload the ones they have and contact your central cash management unit which has direct access to CBN for more.
“We came across instances of sabotage on the part of operators, we will take the case up and they will be dealt with appropriately.
“We came across one of them that couldn’t account for almost four million naira of new notes and appropriate sanction will be placed on them.”