The 2014 Christmas may have come and gone but for residents of Yenagoa the sad memories remain as cash shortages at bank ATMs induced low-keyed celebrations in the Bayelsa State capital.

Indeed, shortage of cash occasioned by heavy withdrawals by high net worth individuals translated into gloomy Christmas for most bank customers in Yenagoa. Investigations revealed that the cash shortage affected most commercial banks as their Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) were depleted of cash before Christmas and remained so during last weekend.

Some residents who spoke on the development regretted that the banks failed to be proactive as the Yuletide season was expected to come with more demand for cash.

Mr. Stephen James said that he spent several hours on the ATM queue at Imgbi Road branch of First Bank on December 24 but was unable to get cash as the three ATM terminals ran out of money.

“It was a sad Christmas for me and my household, I spent a whole day at the bank on 24th but before it got to my turn the ATM stopped paying and when we went to complain the bank officials they told us that there is no money to replenish,” James lamented.

“When I tried other banks the story was the same and I went home totally disappointed because my brother had remitted some money to me to enable us spend our Christmas since my employer have not paid December salary,” he added.

Mrs. Doubra Ebikeme, a housewife, said that her family was compelled to have a low-keyed Christmas due to inability of the banks to dispense cash to customers.

“It was disappointing and also disappointing, on 24th my husband and I tried more than five different banks in Yenagoa but could not withdraw, so we had no option to scale things down,” she said.

Shop operators said that the lack of funds negatively impacted patronage.

Mr Kingsley Young, who operates grocery shops, said that he had stocked his shops in anticipation of increased patronage often associated with Christmas.

He said: “This Christmas witnessed very low sales and customer turn up, it is only the regular customers that collected goods on credit to pay when the banks have money.

“It is regrettable that the cashless policy is yet to work otherwise we could have been using Point of Sale (POS) terminals to deduct money from ATM cards of customers at this time when banks cannot dispense cash.”

An official in one of the commercial banks who demanded to remain anonymous attributed the shortage of cash to high volume withdrawal by wealthy politicians.

According to him, “It is inaccurate to say that the banks did not prepare for Christmas. I think we later found out that the coming electioneering campaigns added to the demand and higher than anticipated withdrawals.

“It dawned on bankers in Yenagoa that high net worth customers needed money and the vaults could not cope and when we contacted other professional colleagues for temporary ‘overnight’ fund they also had similar constraint.”