By NICHOLAS UWERUNONYE
If moves by a coalition of financial regulatory bodies, anti-graft agencies and private partners and advocates are anything to go by, then the prevalence of dud cheque issuance by perpetrators may soon be thing of the past, TELL can authoritatively report.
Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation, NDIC, Economic and Financial Crime Commission, EFCC have begun moves to repeal and amend the Dishonoured Cheque Offences , DCO, Acts to give more bite to offence of issuing dud cheques.
To this effect, the financial agencies in Partnership with Oracle and Company, a legal firm, have put together plans to present a bill meant to check incidence of dud cheque issuance. CBN says that economy loses N166 billion annually to dud cheque transaction. “This hurts the economy badly because not only are the money lost but also in all cases the perpetrators get away with the crime,” said Nwala Chudie, principal partner, Oracle and Company, and lead facilitator for a workshop put together by the financial and antigraft bodies to fashion the new law to combat this menace.
Chudie added that more than 36 years after the enactment of the DCO Act, no offender has been brought to book, going by available records. The lawyer also believes that unless offenders are made to pay heavy reparations for the crime apart from serving jail terms, the law will have no effect in the country. “In India, Trinidad and Tobago, issuance of dud cheques is as serious as serious tax evasion in the UK,” explains Chudie.