Lagos - The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi has declared that as long as he remains the governor of the apex bank, he will not relent in invading and intruding into the activities of the 24 commercial banks in operation and where there are evidences of unprofessional misconduct, he will wield the big stick.
He made this declaration weekend at the annual Bankers’ Dinner organized by the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN) in Lagos, noting that he knows the problem of every bank in Nigeria and will not allow any of them to fail in discharging its duties to the millions of depositors.
Speaking on the topic, “Transparency and Good Corporate Governance”, Sanusi decried the way bankers were lending money to themselves and take them out of the country, adding that the economy had grown by 7 percent mainly from the contributions of Agriculture and Trading.
The banks deprived growth in the real sector, meaning that the economy had grown without the contributions of the banks. Banks claims that they increased credit to the private sector in the past was largely fake”
The CBN boss reiterated that banks are not in crises because no depositor has lost money and the banks are in clearing, rather, it is the chief executive officers that are in crises.
Banks are not set up to finance the chief executive officers and the capital market but to lend money to the real sector in order to impact positively on the economy of the nation”.
Continuing, he stated that recent audit carried out on the banks revealed a whole lot of problem of insider related credit which bothers on poor corporate governance in the system, urging stakeholders not to panic about the system as those CEOs behind it have been sent out.
On the problem at Oceanic and Intercontinental banks whose CEOs were sacked alongside others, Governor Sanusi said if the banks were allowed to fail, it would have brought all other banks to their knees, “people do not know that if we had waited a few months later, we would have had an implosion”. The confidence would have gone but because CBN came out and spoke the truth, the confidence has remained among the people.
Earlier in his welcome address, the Acting President of the CIBN, Mr Joseph Jaiyeola said to ensure a thorough house-cleaning exercise, banks must learn and begin to collaborate inspite of the competition, noting that most of the problems in banks are as a result of refusal to share information, infrastructure and facilities. The institute he said was willing to provide the platform for the interface.
Other stakeholders in the economy he said must come alive to their responsibilities in order for proper banking to be possible and most importantly the need to restore confidence in the banking industry.
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