Indications have emerged that the House of Representatives may strip the Central Bank of Nigeria of its supervisory role.

The Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Banking and Currency, Mr. Jones Onyereri, said the move to strip the CBN of its supervisory role would be an integral focus of the House this year.

Onyereri said members of the House might hand over the role to an independent body, adding that the lawmakers would consider a lot of options.

He said, “With the kind of challenges we have, it has come to the time that we should separate that supervisory function away from the CBN. We need to have an independent body; probably the Financial Supervisory Committee, to deal with issues of bank supervision.

“The core function of the CBN is really on monetary policy matter. We need to hear from the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria, and then take it from there.”

Meanwhile, there is a bill before the House, which seeks to amend the CBN Act 2007, by transferring the power of the board of the 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 appoint another person, other than the CBN governor, as the chairman of the board.

Onyereri, however, urged CIBN to rise up to the challenge of making contributions to monetary policy issues by ensuring that the Monetary Policy Rate was reduced, adding that the high MPR was the reason banks increased interest rates, thereby slowing the growth of economy.

Speaking on the cash-less policy by CBN, he said the bank should study the pilot of the policy well before moving to other states.

Onyereri decried the under-performance of banks in granting loans to customers and suggested that the only way to break the barrier was through empowering Small and Medium-Scale Enterprises.

“We will focus on the cash-less policy, financial inclusion, micro finance banks and also amend the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation Act to make it stronger when we resume plenary in 2013,” he added.

Source: Punch (written by Ademola Alawiye)