Civil society groups, among them Public and Private Development Centre, Enough is Enough Nigeria, FoI Coalition and other interested persons and in accordance with the provisions of the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act 2011, have written to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) requesting for records relating to the directive of re-introducing charges on ATM withdrawals in the Nigerian banking sector and which was made effective from September 01, 2014.
A letter signed by Seember Nyagher, Yemi Ademolekun and Maxwell Kadiri on behalf of the groups says: “According to the directive, the cost of N65 per transaction would apply to the card holder from the 4th “remote-on-us” withdrawal in a month. Considering the need for all banking directives to be made in the national interests, we write to request for documentation that would enable us properly assess how this decision to re-introduce charges on ATM withdrawals was arrived at.”
They thereafter sought for information to be provided under the FoI Act relating to the number of ATM machines deployed by individual banks in each state across Nigeria, location of ATM machines deployed by individual banks in each state across Nigeria, records showing the daily transaction down time on ATM machines in each state across Nigeria in the last six months, records of unfulfilled ATM requests compared to fulfilled ATM requests by individual banks across Nigeria as well as records indicating how much each bank in Nigeria has spent to maintain its ATM infrastructure in the last years.
They also want the apex bank to avail them of records showing the amount each bank in Nigeria paid to other banks for remote-on-use transactions in the last two years, number of complaints about ATM services/transactions disaggregated by bank, records of stakeholder consultation meetings that led to the re-introduction of the ATM charge for remote-on-use transactions, a list of attendees at the stakeholders meeting, the interest group represented by each attendee, certified true copy of the minutes of the stakeholders meetings and resolutions reached at the stakeholders consultations and certified true copy of minutes of the meeting of the CBN board at which the decisions to re-introduced ATM charges was finally adopted.
“In accordance with the FoI Act 2011, we kindly request for this information to be made available to us as soon as possible but in any event, not later than seven days from the receipt of this letter”, the letter concluded.
via@Guardian