The Nigeria Labour Congress on Tuesday attributed the prevailing cash crunch to alleged inaction of the President Bola Tinubu’s administration with regard to corruption.
Banks have been limiting cash withdrawal for customers over-the-counter with the Automated Teller Machine, ATM, starved of cash throwing the populace into discomfort and unable to transact business in their usual manner five days to Xmas.
Consequently, Central bank of Nigeria in response, said the situation arose from naira hoarding, a claim NLC President, Joe Ajaero faulted via a statement he released on Tuesday.
Ajaero said the CBN’s defence is an indictment of the incumbent government’s approach to corruption.
The statement in part, “Is because what the CBN is saying is that since the assumption of office of this government, that the level of graft has increased resulting in the creation of hideouts for the slush funds.
“The question then is, should the ordinary citizens be made to suffer the apparent incompetence of government in prosecuting the anti-corruption war, or is it that there is actually no anti-corruption war going on?
“Nigerians are spending more time in the banks, trying to source for cash not for monies that are not in their accounts, but for their own money. This is undermining confidence of the public in the banks, and may discourage the citizenry from participating actively in banking. It is shameful that Nigerians would have to spend a lot of money to gain access to their hard-earned income. We are creating another avenue for economic rentiers such as the PoS operators and their collaborators in the banks to fleece Nigerians. Subjecting us again to spend our meagre salaries buying our money automatically devalues our income.”
