Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria has kicked against the altering of the CBN Act.
The former Emir of Kano stressed the need for autonomy of the apex bank.
He however challenged members of the National Assembly to do their oversight functions so as to ensure regulations.
Sanusi was CBN governor from June 2009 to February 2014.
He spoke at the Bank Directors Summit organised by the Bank Directors Association of Nigeria on Thursday in Abuja.
He maintained that the banking sector must shore up its trust deficit in the eyes of the public and that there is no need to amend the CBN Act to keep the apex bank free of political influences.
He stated, “It is important to talk about the current conversation emanating especially from the National Assembly, to amend the Central Bank Act. Let me add my voice to those who have said there is nothing wrong with the Central Bank of Nigeria Act. There is nothing wrong with BOFIA. The CBN Act is one of the best central banking laws in the world. In fact when we reviewed central bank laws, the only laws we saw that we would learn a few things from was Bank Negara of Malaysia.
“Now if people who are supposed to implement a law don’t implement it, the solution is not to change the law, and this reaction is kneejerk if you take away the independence of the central bank and bring it under political control. You would hurt the system and on long-term, you are institutionalising the lack of autonomy. The reality is, you have an independent autonomous central bank whose independence was undermined by a combination of politicians and central bank actors. It is time to go back to what the central bank is supposed to do and implement the law.”
The ex-CBN governor also spoke about the use of Ways and Means and how resisted the pressure to go beyond the limit requited by the law.
He said, “Look at the example of Ways and Means. That scenario only happened because, along the line, all checks and balances collapsed. When the National Assembly talks about Ways and Means, the question is: where were the oversight committees of the National Assembly? We were all asked when we were in position as governor to bring money, on several occasions. There was a day I was called by the finance minister that they needed N100bn. I told them they had reached the limit and we had to find other solutions to raise funds for the government without breaking the law.
“If this tells anything, it is that when people start to complain about too many regulations, they need to think about when regulation was rolled back in America. Regulations are dynamic and can change. We have to ensure that banks are well-managed and that banks understand the risks that they run. Now, regulations are one thing of course and the actual doing of the regulations is another thing.”
