Abuja — The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) yesterday vowed to remove and blacklist the managing director of any microfinance bank who fails to render monthly returns promptly or make false or late rendition in two consecutive times, in addition to monetary penalties.

Indeed, the apex bank regulatory authority assured that repeated failure to render the returns for a period of six months by any MFB would amount to the revocation of the bank's operating licence.

Reading the riot act yesterday in Abuja at the inaugural meeting of the Committee of MicrofinanceBanks in Nigeria, CBN Governor, Professor Chukwuma Soludo stated that all the affected banks are required to submit monthly returns to the Director, Other Financial Institutions Department of the apex bank as well as to Director, Special Insured Institutions Department of the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) not later than 10 working days after the relevant month.

Failure to render the returns as well as refusal to submit audited financial statements and the abridged version to the CBN for approval not later than four months after the end of the financial year, Soludo said, attracts the suspension of the bank's chief executive for one month in the first instance, in line with section 8.2 of the Guidelines for the MFBs.

He said the CBN had "observed with grave concern that many MFBs have failed/refused to render monthly returns to the regulatory authorities in the past two months. For instance, as at 15th April, 2008, only 428MFBs (66.15 per cent) had submitted February returns, out of 647 returns expected. This situation is totally unacceptable."

However, briefing the newsmen after the naugural meeting, Director, Other Financial Institutions Department (OFID), Mr. Sam Oni noted that the situation has improved with 88 per cent of the MFBs rendering returns as at date.

According to him, only 77 MFBs of a total of 752 operating currently have not submitted their returns."We have about 88 per cent of them having rendered returns as at today. There are about 77 of them that have not rendered returns and we have urged them to do that," he said.

Oni while explaining the role of the Inaugurated Committee of the Microfinance Banks in Nigeria(COMBIN), which is made up of the managing directors and CEOs of microfinance banks said "the committee is an advisory committee, an advocacy committee that will promote professionalism, high ethical standards and build some capacity trainings for their members to complement the efforts of the regulatory authorities in promoting stability, especially financial stability."