Economic Empowerment
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Wednesday disclosed that it planned to roll out a three-year programme that would seek to empower women bankers in the financial system as well as a women economic empowerment scheme that would make sure that female entrepreneurs could access credit from banks at single-digit rates of interest by the end of the year.
To this end, the CBN said the Bankers Committee had set a target between 2012 and 2014 to ensure that 40 per cent of top management positions in banks are held by women.
During the same period, 30 per cent of board positions in banks will also be reserved for women.
CBN Governor, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, made this known while presenting a keynote address titled, ‘Towards Financial System Stability: Recent Policy Reforms in the Nigerian Banking Sector’, at the second Murtala Muhammed Foundation 2012 Public Policy Dialogue in Lagos.
Sanusi said the decision followed a meeting of the Bankers’ Committee, which met in Lagos, on Tuesday.
The bankers’ committee comprises banks’ chief executive officers and their discount houses counterparts, and representatives of the apex bank, among others,
He said: “Between now and 2014, we have set a target for at least 40 per cent of the top management positions in banks to be held by women.
“By December 2014, we have set a target for at least 30 per cent of board seats in every bank to be held by women also.”
Sanusi added that before the end of this year, the CBN would set in motion a policy that would make it possible for female entrepreneurs to borrow at single-digit rates of interest.
He enthused: “This is a year for women empowerment in this country. I am saying this because we need to appreciate what our bankers have done in the last few years.
“More than 80 or 90 per cent of our women are poor. Yet, when they borrow, they pay. When they make money, they invest in their children and families. However, women are at the bottom of the pyramid in Africa.
“We talk of the men who are poor, but under the feet of the poorest of men, is a poorer woman. Go to the villages, you will see men who are struggling to survive but have four wives! And those children who come out of such homes are those that are used for violence. I have said it before that violence has its root in poverty.”
The CBN governor emphasised the need for a structural adjustment in the financial system, so as to grow the economy, reduce poverty and income inequalities.
He declared: “Development does not come by having vision alone. We have to actually begin to work. What the banks have agreed is that for our intervention in agriculture, we are not going to support the distortions in the environment.
“The agriculture sector contributes up to 42 per cent of GDP and employs 70 per cent of the population, yet had access to only one per cent of banking system credit.
“That shows that banks were totally disconnected from the Nigerian economy, which means there has to be a structural adjustment to fund productive sectors that can scale back poverty.
“In our intervention in the power sector, even though we understand that we have to support gas plants, but we are going to start looking at renewable energy in the form of hydro and solar energy.
“And in the oil and gas industry, we are going to set up minimum environmental standards that every oil and gas company that wants to borrow from a Nigerian bank must comply with, otherwise they won’t get loans from the industry.”
Commenting on the cash-lite policy, Sanusi insisted that the policy would reduce banks’ operating cost by 30 per cent in the next three years.
In her presentation, the Chief Executive Officer, Renaissance Capital, West Africa, Mrs. Yvonne Fasinro, argued that if the challenges of power supply are addressed, the economy would grow by 10 per cent, from its current growth rate of seven per cent.
Similarly, the Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Access Bank Plc, Mr. Aigboje Aig-Imokhuede, called for paradigm shift in the leadership system, so as to achieve the desired growth.
According to the Access Bank boss, the reform in the banking industry had enthroned the concept of faith, ethics and corporate governance in Nigerian banks.
Managing Director, Financial Derivatives Company Limited, Mr. Bismarck Rewane, spoke on the need to extend reforms to the public sector, especially in various states across the country.
16 Feb 2012
CBN Governor, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi