Revenue Generation and the Cashless Policy

Abstract

The Cashless Nigeria Project initiated under the Lamido Sanusi reform as governor of Central Bank of Nigeria since 2010 has been a trial and error experiment in futility and an economic drain pipe of national resources that has not yielded any notable result. Several revised versions of the policy have been experimented with in the trial and error process, yet none of them yielded any positive results. Some state governments in the country and the federal government have ignorantly expected the Sanusi’s experiments to benefit their financial management for the economy and efficiency of the payment system, to manage government payment systems of all sorts including revenue generation. Rather than achieve any efficiency and cost savings, they have encountered unprecedented failures, in the systemic revenue collection drives, troubles and woes of payment system outcomes, for salaries, contracts etc. Many payments never get to the beneficiaries after three to five months of dispatch. The banking system has also cued behind the Central Bank in the failure dynamics of frustrating the Nigerian banking public by driving them out of the banking halls to be scorched in the hot sun and drenched in the rains in kilometers of cue on the Automated Teller Machines (ATM) that fail the customers more often and send back home frustrated without delivering required services. Point of sales (POS) machines are equally not better options as internet network failures make them perpetually unattractive to both customers and traders or shop owners. The Cashless Nigeria Project as a proposition to better the lot of the Nigeria public is a total failure after three years of comatose and lacklustre implementation process. How can such a project benefit government revenue generation? The Nigeria governments in total betrayal of the banking public and businesses have been part of the conspiracy to further frustrate their banking and financial service delivery, so the need to walk along the isles with Lamido Sanusi in pretence that he is or about to succeed. This is the presentation of this professionally based academic work.

Keywords: The Cashless Policy, CBN, The Nigerian Banking System, Financial Management, Payment System, Revenue Generation, ATM, POS