There are ongoing moves by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) to get commercial banks and microfinance banks return to the troubled North-East region, NDIC Managing Director, Umaru Ibrahim has said.
Speaking Thursday at the ongoing NDIC Annual Workshop for financial journalists in Kano, Ibrahim, called on the CBN to provide incentives for commercial banks and microfinance banks to come back to the North-east after they closed shops because of the impact of the Boko Haram on their operations.
He said the Northeast has potentials to support economic growth and should be supported by banks to achieve the desired result. He spoke on the theme: “The Nigerian banking sector: Challenges, opportunities and the way forward.”
He said: “Many bank CEOs have forgotten the economic potentials that exist in the Northeast. We need to awaken the banks to see the economic potentials in the Northeast. During the next special Bankers’ Committee meeting, the Northeast infrastructural revival will be discussed. The CBN already has planned to rebuild the Northeast,” he said.
He called on the CBN and other major stakeholders in the financial system to rebuild the financial infrastructure in the troubled North-East region.
He said the activities of insurgents in the region in the last few years have led to huge damage of financial infrastructure in the region.
The NDIC boss disclosed that given the crisis in the North-East region, so many businesses have been adversely affected while some investors have moved their investments out of that region.
He said the rate at which people are being financially excluded in the region has increased due to lack of adequate provision of financial services which was caused by insurgents.
The NDIC boss said he would personally table the issue to the Bankers’ Committee during their next meeting so that concrete steps could be taken to address the problem.
To encourage Deposit Money Banks to open more branches in the North-East, he said there was need for the CBN to provide more incentives to banks. He said, “We need to have the government of the North-East on board, they need to be sensitised on this issue.
“We need more collaboration with the CBN and government of the North-East because without this, not much can be done.
“It is necessary for the CBN to provide incentives for various banks in order to come back to the North-East because many bank CEOs have forgotten the potentials that exist in this region.”
In his presentation titled “Rebuilding Financial Infrastructure in the North East”, the Director Development Finance, CBN, Mudashiru Olaitan, lamented the low level of access to the bank’s interventions in the region.
Olaitan, who was represented by the Deputy Director in the Department, Sani Mohammed said out of the N82 billion that was spent between 2001-2008, no state in the region accessed the apex bank’s interventions.
“In the commercial agricultural scheme intervention by the CBN, no state in the North-East accessed this intervention except in Taraba and Gombe which have only one each.”So there is need for the region to tap into the interventions,” he added.
