NFIU warns state governors, insists on ban on cash withdrawal

There will be no going back on the ban on cash withdrawal from accounts belonging to federal, states and local governments or agencies of the government at all levels, according to the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU).

The unit’s stance was in response to the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) setting up a six-member committee led by former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and Anambra State Governor, Charles Soludo, to engage the apex bank and the NFIU to “address grey areas pertaining the country’s monetary management and financial system.”

In the communiqué issued on Saturday by Chairman of the NGF, Governor Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto, the governors said a recent NFIU advisory and guidelines on cash transactions were outside the NFIU’s legal remit and mandate.

The governors also urged the CBN to consider the peculiarities of states especially as they pertain to financial inclusion and under-served as strict compliance with the structured withdrawal limit would be problematic to the Nigerian populace.

The NGF, however, resolved to “collaborate with the CBN and the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit NFIU in advancing genuine objectives within the confines of our laws, noting that the recent NFIU.”

READ ALSO:NFIU bans cash withdrawals from govts’ accounts

But while insisting that there will be no going back on the policy, the NFIU, on Saturday maintained that its ban on cash withdrawal was within the confines of the law concerning the guidelines on cash withdrawals from all government accounts.

The Director, NFIU, Modibbo Tukur who made this known in response to NGF, said though it was ready to partner with the committee set up by the governors, the unit will “continue to enlighten them” on the process.

“Secondly, we acted within our functions and the law. We issued the guidelines to control the barrage of investigations that we saw coming. Our guidelines were meant to help the governors, not to fight them or any public servant,” Tukur said.

“We reached a stage that if we allow the present scenario to continue, all public institutions will drift into structured cash withdrawals of certain amounts of money which by law, standards and best practices must be investigated continuously which is neither desirable nor reasonable.

“We feel communities must move on by accommodating changes and adjusting to new developments,” he added in a statement signed by the agency’s Chief Media Analyst, Ahmed Dikko.

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