CBN reclaims over N60bn illegal bank charges for customers

• From Announced plans to create 10m jobs in five years

Omobayo Azeez

The Central Bank of Nigeria has said that it had refunded over N60 billion to customers who were wrongly charged by banks.

Isaac Okoroafor, the apex bank’s director of corporate communications, made the disclosure during two-day customers’ sensitisation forum in Owerri, the Imo State capital, adding that erring banks have been duly sanctioned after the funds were recovered.

The bank also announced that it had commenced the processes for creation of 10 million jobs in the next five years through investment support in agriculture, using 10 commodity models.

Okoroafor said the recovery of the excess bank charges was made possible through the bank’s Consumer Protection Department, according to monitored reports.

According to him, the amount was recovered following complaints by 13,000 customers over excess and illegal charges on their accounts by banks.

Okoroafor, who also disclosed that the erring banks were meted with various penalties by the CBN, stated that the apex bank was determined to ensure that no bank customer was cheated with excessive charges from their banks.

He encouraged bank customers to report all cases of suspected illegal or excessive charges they feel their banks might have imposed on them.

On the CBN’s development function, Okoroafor said, “We want to stop inflation in the economy by ensuring that prices of food items don’t keep rising at every turn. That’s why we made loans available with single digits interest rate”.

In the light or this, the CBN spokesman disclosed that more than 10 million jobs would be created in Nigeria in the next five years through the apex bank’s activities.

The jobs, he added, would be created through 10 commodity models such as cotton, cassava, palm oil, cocoa, maize, tomatoes poultry, fishery, cattle and dairy.

“We will also provide high yielding seedlings as well as extension services to the farmers. We’ll equally provide them with the processors or off takers who will buy off their farm products immediately after harvest. This will create the best value chain for everyone.

“If we face cassava for instance in the South East alone, we will create at least one million jobs here. Our intention is to bring back farm settlements across the country as it used to be in the past. That’s the easiest way of building our economy”, he said.