Yuletide; Cash Crunch Hits Calabar As Long Queues Resurface
By Missang AKPET
CASH scarcity has once again affected the business community in Cross River State as people find it hard to access physical cash for their daily transactions.
Since 2022 December, Nigerians have been experiencing cash scarcity during Yuletide seasons like this and this year seems to be indifferent.
BEAGLE NEWS Investigation revealed that customers, both in the rural and urban areas, face significant challenges trying to withdraw cash for business and festive purposes.
Despite the fact that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in a statement said it has released enough cash to banks for both ATMs and off counter withdrawals, asking customers to report any bank that refuses to disburse cash, bank customers still reported being told they could only withdraw as little as N20,000 from bank counters, while other banks restricted counter withdrawals to as low as N10,000.
This has left customers with no choice than to accuse banks of hoarding cash to maximize profits during the yuletide season, leaving its customers stranded.
A delivery van driver who simply gave his name as Peter explained that he needed just N30,000 to fuel his van but was only able to get 10,000 from his bank counter.
“I’m suppose to drive to Ikom this morning so I needed cash to fuel my van. I went to the bank to withdraw from the counter since the ATMs were not paying and I was told I can only be paid N10,000 as there is no cash in the bank.
“I had to resort to POS operators, to even find POS paying cash was an issue. When I finally found a POS that had cash, I bought N20,000 for N1,000” he complained.
A staff of one of the First Bank branches I spoke with revealed that commercial banks are suffering from scarcity of cash because the CBN disburses limited cash to them.
According to him; “CBN does not release enough cash to banks o, the cash they release cannot even serve the bank for 2 days on normal basis. Funny enough they no longer disburse the old currency but only give us the 2022 new designed currency”
When asked how much is being disbursed by the bank, he maintained that on first bank ATMs, first bank cards can only withdraw N10,000 at once while non first bank cards are limited to N5,000.
Meanwhile, customers and business owners have accused the banks of hoarding monies and selling same to POS operators for higher profit accusing them of sending large sums of money to POS agents in exchange for hefty commissions.
On the other hand, it appears POS operators are also experiencing the cash scarcity as we visited over 15 POS stands on Tuesday but could not get as low as N10,000 to withdraw.
Favour a POS operator along the Murtala Muhammed highway in Calabar attributed the lack of cash by POS operators to the inability of banks to make cash available both at ATMs and the counter adding that it might get worse as we go deeper into the Christmas season.
When asked if the banks do sell cash to POS operators, she said; “that is not true, we buy physical cash from fuel stations and traders to come and sell in our stands and not from the banks. If we were buying cash from bankers, definitely you would have seen cash to withdraw in my stand but unfortunately there’s no cash.
“This is because fuel stations and most shops this days have resorted to using POS machines for their transaction so they rarely have enough physical cash to sell to us” she said.
This trend is worsening the economic hardship already faced by Nigerians as cash has now become a scarce commodity.
It is yet to be ascertained if the scarcity is caused by the Apex bank CBN who have already asked customers to report commercial banks who have refused to disburse cash or the commercial banks.
However, one thing is certain, the underlying effects of the cash scarcity is most felt by the common man on the street.
