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

On the circumstances in which the President would approve a cash withdrawal from public funds, further information has come to light.

The Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) last week cut off the possibility of cash withdrawals from government accounts beginning on March 1, 2023, with the caveat that only the President might authorize some exceptions to the regulation.

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

However, a source told The Nation that “when certain persons must relocate with cash, it’s in such circumstances we advise write to the President.”

According to Tukur, a directive has been sent to “the governors, chairmen and the MDAs” at the level of the central government. “ They have until the first of March 2023 to put all the necessary infrastructure in place in order to operationalize the guidelines.

The restriction, according to Tukur, is that a presidential clearance is required even for extraordinary withdrawal requests from any public account. There is no standing waiver for withdrawal; nevertheless, the president must provide the waiver on a case-by-case basis due to the nature of some jobs.

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

Tukur stated that these “cash withdrawals directly violate the provisions of the Proceeds of Crime (Recovery and Management) Act, 2022 (POCA, 2022), which provides the legal framework setting restrictions on cash transactions, and the Money Laundering (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022 (MLPPA, 2022).”

According to the NFIU’s recently released guidelines, cash withdrawals must be prohibited in order to reduce the risk of exposing public employees to crimes and safeguard the financial system from ongoing abuse. These principles are found in Sections 2 (Cash Transaction Outside Financial Institutions Limit) and 13 (Use Of New Products, Business Practices And New Technologies) of the MLPPA, 2022.

According to the guidelines, the decision to stop withdrawing money from public accounts is not intended 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 rivals, or to their personal political advantage.”

According to Tukur, cash withdrawals from public accounts have gotten out of control due to “inflation, economic developments, as well as remuneration for abroad trips in terms of estacode and other international allowances.”