‘Buhari’ll only consider security, others for cash withdrawals ‘

‘Buhari’ll only consider security, others for cash withdrawals ‘

MORE facts have emerged on the conditions under which the President would authorise cash withdrawal from public accounts.

Last week, the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) foreclosed avenues for cash withdrawals from public accounts from March 1, 2023, but with a proviso that only the President can grant some exceptions to the rule.

Chief Executive Officer, NFIU Modibbo Hamman Tukur, said:  “The President will only consider requests for cash withdrawals from public accounts on issues dealing with the border, defence, security or medical.”

However, “where certain individuals must move with cash, it’s in such cases we say write to the President,”  a source told The Nation.

Tukur had stated that an advisory has been issued to “the governors, chairmen and the MDAs” at the central government’s level. “We give them from now till first of march 2023 to put all facilities in place to operationalise the guidelines.

“So where is the bottom line, on the first of March if there is any cash withdrawal from a government account, we are going to trigger a money laundering investigation in all the law enforcement agencies depending on the relevance of the withdrawal”

Tukur had stated that “the limitation is that even if there are special needs to withdraw cash from any public account anywhere, that will have to get a presidential approval. There’s no standing waiver to withdraw, but because of certain jobs the waiver will be on a case by case and has to be by the president.

According to NFIU’s analysis for 2015 to 2022, the Federal Government withdrew N225.72 billion, the states N701.54 billion, and Local Governments N156.76 billion.

Tukur noted that these “cash withdrawals directly contravene the provisions of the Money Laundering (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022 (MLPPA, 2022) and the Proceeds of Crime (Recovery and Management) Act, 2022 (POCA, 2022) which provide the legal framework setting limitations on cash transactions and sanctions for infringement of the provisions”.

The NFIU recently released guidelines state that “by the principles of Section 2 (Cash Transaction Outside Financial Institutions Limit), and Section 13 (Use Of New Products, Business Practices And New Technologies) of the MLPPA, 2022, cash withdrawals must be prohibited in order to mitigate the risk of exposure of public servants to crimes and protect the financial system from continuous abuse.

The decision to stop withdrawal from public accounts, the guidelines stated, is not meant to indict “chief accounting officers of Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs), but in the context of Nigeria’s democracy, it gives room for adversaries, political opponents and antagonists to exploit the law against their competitors, or to their individual political advantage”.

Tukur said cash withdrawals from public accounts had become very rampant “necessitated by inflation and changes in the economy, and also due to payment for overseas travels in terms of estacode and other overseas allowances”.