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No Going Back on Cash Wothdrawal Limits, NFIU Insists
The Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) today stated that it has no plans to change the cash withdrawal limit guidelines it issued earlier this month regarding the financial operations of Nigeria’s three tiers of government.
The NFIU issued the statement in reaction to its meeting with the governors of the 36 states of the federation who had sought its understanding to further delay or tinker with the cash withdrawal guidelines.
In a statement signed by its Chief Media Analyst, Ahmed Dikko, available to Meridianspy on Saturday, NFIU made it clear that it had given enough time for all entities in the country to withdraw cash above the approved daily limit and it was no longer in the interest of the country and its citizens to continue to indulge in such violation.
He also said every decision made was to stop challenges in the financial system in the most “progressive manner.”
His statement: “First of all, we are ready to partner with the six-man committee they set up. We will enlighten them,” he said.
“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.”
“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.
“Last time we issued the local government guidelines we were taken to court but we won the case.
“But more importantly, we need to understand that in the recent past, the United States FIU and United Kingdom FIU penalised Nigerian banks with fines of millions of U.S dollars due to non-compliance.
“Internally, non-compliance with sections cited in the recent guidelines comes with heavy penalties on financial institutions. We did, on a gentlemanly pretext, avoid until this moment putting a fine on financial institutions expecting gradual learning and adjustments.
“But to eternally guarantee this kind gesture is to automatically keep abusing our laws.
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