Late publication of accounts: CBN to sack banks’ CEOs, chairmen

LAGOS — The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has said it will sack chief executive officer and chairman of any bank that fails to publish its financial statement within the regulatory period.

This was contained in the Monetary, Credit, Foreign Trade and Exchange Policy Guidelines for the 2016/2017 fiscal year released by the apex bank, yesterday. According to the CBN, all banks must publish their financial statements latest four months after their financial year or risk severe sanction, including removal of the chief executive officer and the chairman. The CBN stated: “In accordance with BOFIA 2010 LFN, banks are required, subject to the written approval of the CBN, to publish not later than four months after the end of each financial year, their audited financial statements (statement of financial position and statement of comprehensive income) in a national newspaper printed and circulated in Nigeria. “To facilitate the implementation of consolidated supervision, all banks, discount houses and their subsidiaries shall continue to adopt December 31, as their accounting year-end. “The CBN shall continue to hold the Board Chairman and Managing Director (MD) of a defaulting bank directly responsible for any breach and impose appropriate sanctions which may include the following: Barring the MD or his/her nominee from participation in the Bankers’ Committee and disclosing the reason for such suspension;  suspension of the foreign exchange dealership licence of the bank and its name sent to the Nigerian Stock Exchange (in the case of a public quoted company); and removal of the chairman and managing director from office if the accounts remain unpublished for 12 months after the end of the bank’s financial year.” Naira depreciates N281.5/$ Meanwhile, the naira depreciated in interbank and parallel segments of the foreign exchange market yesterday. At the interbank market, the naira depreciated marginally by 35 kobo as the interbank exchange rate for spot transactions rose to N281.49 per dollar from N281.14 per dollar. But at the parallel market, the naira depreciated by N10 or 3.2 percent as the parallel exchange rate rose sharply to N351 per dollar from N340 per dollar on Monday. A bureau de change operator, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the sharp depreciation was due to resurgence of demand for dollars, while supply has declined. Last week, the naira appreciated significantly in the parallel market due to panic selling of dollars which boosted supply. The BDC source, however, said the appreciation was due to panic reaction to the commencement of the revived interbank foreign exchange market under the new flexible foreign exchange policy introduced by the CBN two weeks ago.