by Emmanuel Okubenji

The House of Representatives has initiated steps to curtail the bank supervisory roles of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and fully empower the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN) to do so.

The CBN is the primary regulator of the banking industry.

Chairman House Committee on Banking and Currency, Jones Onyereri, said that the House’s decision is premised on the “kind of challenges” the nation has.

“The core function of the CBN is really on the monetary policy matter,” he said. “In Nigeria, CBN also uses its core mandate of bank supervision. Now we need to hear from CIBN; we are looking at the institute critically. With the kind of challenges we have, it has come to the time that we should separate that function away from CBN.”

He further disclosed that when it resumes plenary in 2013, the National Assembly would focus on cashless policy, financial inclusion, Micro finance banks, and amending the NDIC Acs to make it stronger.

There is a bill before the House, which seeks to amend the CBN Act 2007 by transferring the power of the board of the apex bank to approve its budget to the National Assembly. The bill also proposes to cut the membership of the board from 12 to seven and to appoint another person, other than the CBN governor, as the chairman of the board.