Business
Economists Urge CBN To Strengthen Regulations, Monitor Banks’ Compliance
Two economists on
Thursday urged the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to strengthen its regulation of the financial institutions to prevent further liquidity problems.
The experts who spoke in separate interviews with newsmen in Ota, Ogun State said that strict regulations would put the banking sector in check.
They spoke against the backdrop of the apex bank’s sanction of nine commercial banks on Wednesday for not remitting the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation’s 2.3 billion dollars into the treasury single account.
One of the economists, Dr Kunle Badmus, said the CBN needed to put in place a monitoring team that would enhance sound governance in the sector.
Badmus, who is a lecturer in economics at the Covenant University, Ota, said the CBN needed to intensify its efforts to check sharp practices in the financial sector.
“Nigerians cannot afford to see a repetition of what happened in the banking sector in 2008.
“The liquidity crises in the financial sector at that time made investors to lose their funds and shares to the problem banks and it resulted in the death of many Nigerians.
The other economist, Dr Tunde Adeoye, commended the CBN for suspending the nine banks for allegedly hiding the 2.3 billion dollars from the treasury single account.
“The suspension of those banks will serve as a deterrent for other banks and check some manipulations in the financial sector,” Adeoye said.
He, however, attributed some of the lapses in the financial sector to the apex bank’s inability to enforce appropriate regulations.
Adeoye, also a lecturer in the department of economics at the University of Lagos, urged the CBN to punish any bank caught round-tripping to forestall loss of investor confidence in the financial sector.
He said the apex bank needed to increase its efforts at monitoring banks’ compliance with its regulations, adding that this might require employing more competent hands.