THE CORONAVIRUS STIMULUS PACKAGE FOR THE SAKE OF THE MOST VULNERABLE IN OUR SOCIETY: LEVERAGING ON THE POWER OF THE CBN BVN
By Aderogba Otunla
Starting with three (3) ‘Gbosa’ for the Nigerian Government, for acting swiftly and taking actionable steps on the Coronavirus or COVID-19 pandemic, which is now in a few states in Nigeria.
Gbosa! Gbosa! Gbosa!
I am here to support and share some insights which I believe can be valuable to Item No. 54 of the President’s National Broadcast Speech aired on the 29th of March 2020.
Below is a link to the full text of the President’s Speech from Channels TV:
Item No. 54 reads:
“54. For the most vulnerable in our society, I have directed that the conditional cash transfers for the next two months be paid immediately. Our Internally displaced persons will also receive two months of food rations in the coming weeks.”
So many Nigerians with the means are already volunteering and supporting families and individuals who are finding this period challenging to feed, and I believe it shows great empathy on the part of the President thinking of them.🙏🥰
DISCLAIMER:
For people who are interested in political debates and argument on the contents of this publication – Sorry! BREAKING NEWS! I am not interested. This is 100% aimed to share supportive ideas only for people who might be implementing Item 54. of the President’s Speech – that’s it, FINITO👌😋😊. You too can also find an area or domain where you can be useful positively to society in this COVID-19 tsunami era OK, thank you for understanding. 🙏
Well, I believe there are some bottlenecks somewhere. If you can read this publication “Despite CBN’s Swift Response to Covid-19, FG Delays Fiscal Stimulus” by This Day, published a few days ago on Sunday 29th March 2019 find the link below:
The last paragraph reads:
“There is, therefore, an urgent need for the government to go beyond the monetary interventions by the CBN and fashion a fiscal stimulus package to blunt the effects of the lockdown on the poor, an economic demographic that has been geometrically expanding since 2015 as a result of millions of job losses that have characterized the Buhari administration.”
Moving forward:
1. The phrase “most vulnerable in our society” is ambiguous and also subject to discretionary interpretation I guess.
So, for us to have a use case in mind, we can interpret “most vulnerable in our society” to mean – A Nigerian citizen who is 18 years old or above, and cannot feed as a result of the Coronavirus or COVID-19 pandemic. I guess this makes some sense.
This could be as a result of so many factors, for example, the shutdown of cities, self-isolation, restriction of movements, not having enough cash to live through these periods, or inability to work or even loss of a job as a result of the pandemic.
The truth is this “sincerely, there are lots of individuals and families in this category at the moment.”
2. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) will play a vital role and also, may find some of these suggestions useful. The CBN needs to have an idea of the total number of people who cannot feed at this time or need support during this crisis period. The numbers really matter here!
The CBN can only achieve this through the information currently resident with the 22 (Twenty Two) Commercial Banks in Nigeria namely:
Access Bank Plc, Citibank Nigeria Limited, Ecobank Nigeria Plc, Fidelity Bank Plc, First Bank Nigeria Limited, First City Monument Bank Plc, Globus Bank Limited, Guaranty Trust Bank Plc, Heritage Banking Company Ltd., Key Stone Bank, Polaris Bank, Providus Bank, Stanbic IBTC Bank Ltd., Standard Chartered Bank Nigeria Ltd., Sterling Bank Plc, SunTrust Bank Nigeria Limited, Titan Trust Bank Ltd, Union Bank of Nigeria Plc, United Bank For Africa Plc, Unity Bank Plc, Wema Bank Plc, Zenith Bank Plc.
Source: CBN https://www.cbn.gov.ng/Supervision/Inst-DM.asp
The CBN can develop a model and this model will have an assumption.
Example of an assumption:
“All Nigerians who have the bank balance of N10,000 (Ten thousand naira) only or less in their bank accounts currently, as at 31st March 2020 are categorized as most vulnerable in our society”.
And if this assumption is accepted to be used as part of the model, then we can move to the next step.
3. The CBN will also have to request from the 22 commercial banks, some customer's information that falls within the category of the model. I also understand that customers’ information is not meant to be shared just like that – and I get it OK.
According to Section 33 Sub-Section 1 and 2 of the CBN Act - Power to Require or Share Information:
33. (1) In addition to any of its powers under this Act, the Bank may -
(a) require persons and institutions having access thereto at all reasonable times, to supply, in such forms as the Bank may from time to time direct, information relating to or touching or concerning matters affecting the economy of Nigeria; and
(b) issue guidelines to any person and any institutions under its supervision.
(2) The Bank shall take account of matters of confidential nature supplied to the Bank under this section, but where the Bank is satisfied that it is in the national interest and that the person supplying the information does not object to a proposal to publish it within a reasonable time of becoming aware of it, the Bank may, from any information in it possession compile and publish statistical data, and anything relevant thereto, on the national economy.
Here is a copy of the Act Establishing the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)
Trust me; Nigeria has one of the most empathic bank chairs on the planet. A typical example is Tony Onyemaechi Elumelu, the Chairman of UBA. People like him already has validation from Emmanuel Macron, President of France for the Youth Entrepreneurship through his foundation “Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF)” to the tune of about one billion euro since 5th July 2018.
Considering the confined scope of the information request by the CBN, everyone can tell that this information has defined objectives for a particular mission.
The information that will be required from the banks are:
i. Bank Code (Unique codes to differentiate the banks)
ii. Bank Name
iii. Customer’s Bank Account Number
iv. Customer CBN Bank Verification Number (BVN)
v. Customer’s First Name
vi. Customer’s Last Name
vii. Customer’s Date of Birth
viii. Customer’s Bank Balance as at 31st December 2020 (Customers with N10,000 or less ONLY)
ix. Customer’s Phone Number
x. Customer’s Email Address
ii. Bank Name
iii. Customer’s Bank Account Number
iv. Customer CBN Bank Verification Number (BVN)
v. Customer’s First Name
vi. Customer’s Last Name
vii. Customer’s Date of Birth
viii. Customer’s Bank Balance as at 31st December 2020 (Customers with N10,000 or less ONLY)
ix. Customer’s Phone Number
x. Customer’s Email Address
The banks can supply this information in spreadsheet formats i.e. .xlsx or .csv to the CBN as required.
Using the appropriate SQL database syntaxes or similar queries, the commercial banks just need to ensure that the customers are within the age of 18 years or above, and also have the balance of N10,000 or less.
Sample SQL will be like this:
SELECT * FROM bank_customers_information
WHERE customers_age >= ‘2003-01-11’
AND customers_bank_balance <= ‘10,000.00’;
WHERE customers_age >= ‘2003-01-11’
AND customers_bank_balance <= ‘10,000.00’;
4. I believe it will be nice to store all the aggregated information collected from the 22 commercial banks to an identified location. I will call this location cbn_requested_information, preferably a database with a table name while also maintaining the structure above. It will also be nice to use both “Customer’s Bank Account Number” and “Customer CBN Bank Verification Number (BVN)” as “Primary Keys” in this new table structure.
BVNs are unique, and Customers Bank Account Numbers are also unique. Joining both together as PRIMARY KEYS makes sense, because the combinations will also be unique, and this can produce millions of unique identifiers for your major implementation scenario.
5. Now, unleashing the power of the BVN. According to Premium Times and Vanguard on 1st May 2018 “CBN captures 31 million Nigerians in Bank Verification Number Project”
Premium Times Source:
https://www.premiumtimesng.com/…/266801-cbn-captures-31-mil…
https://www.premiumtimesng.com/…/266801-cbn-captures-31-mil…
Vanguard Source:
https://www.vanguardngr.com/…/cbn-captures-31m-nigerians-ba…
https://www.vanguardngr.com/…/cbn-captures-31m-nigerians-ba…
According to the News Media publication, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has captured no fewer than 31 million account customers in its Bank Verification Number (BVN) project aimed at ensuring unique identifier in the Nigerian banking industry.
“As at December 2017, the implementation of the BVN Project recorded 31,426,091 registered BVNs and 43,959,282- accounts linked with BVN,’’
A few days ago, 29th March 2020 Vanguard publication https://www.vanguardngr.com/…/covid-19-atiku-palliative-di…/ “There are about 40 million people who are registered via BVN.”
So, let’s work with 40 million.
The Bank Verification Number (BVN) will be a valuable tool, in this case, it will reduce or eliminate the possibility of making multiple payments to a single individual. Remember that a single person can have multiple bank accounts in different banks, and since the BVN is a unique identifier, it’s simple SQL:
SELECT * FROM cbn_requested_information
GROUP BY bvn_unique_identifiers ;
GROUP BY bvn_unique_identifiers ;
And also, additional filters and checks can be written into this, for example, if you wish to use the names:
SELECT * FROM cbn_requested_information
WHERE first_name LIKE ‘%XYZ%’
AND last_name LIKE ‘%ABC%’
GROUP BY bvn_unique_identifiers;
WHERE first_name LIKE ‘%XYZ%’
AND last_name LIKE ‘%ABC%’
GROUP BY bvn_unique_identifiers;
6. According to this publication “COVID –19: Atiku palliative divides Nigerians” by Vanguard, the former Vice President and also former Presidential aspirant recommended the sum of N10,000 as the palliative, which is currently been debated.
But also, if you take your time to read that publication:
(a) You will notice that there are lots of Nigerians willing to support the Nigerian Government with donations.
(a) You will notice that there are lots of Nigerians willing to support the Nigerian Government with donations.
(b) So, why can't the Central Bank of Nigeria create one (1) unified bank account that is recognized by everyone,;
(c) Set a deadline date for all donations to be remitted into the agreed bank account,;
(d) Add-up the donations in addition to the stimulus package from the government and;
(e) Divide the total amount available with the total number of eligible Nigerians;
(f) Then using e-payment get the supporting funds to the people.
I want to believe that this will be an effective and efficient distribution model, and also can be used for appropriate reporting and briefing moving forward.
Thank you.🙏
CONNECT . INFORM . INSPIRE
#AderogbaOtunla #GBGAbuja #Covid19 #Coronavirus #StimulusPackage #ForTheSakeOfTheMostVulnerableInOurSociety
#AderogbaOtunla #GBGAbuja #Covid19 #Coronavirus #StimulusPackage #ForTheSakeOfTheMostVulnerableInOurSociety
Pictures Sources:
Omotayo Tajudeen from pexels.com
Omotayo Tajudeen from pexels.com
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