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Orders immediate swap of old notes ahead of deadline
By Marie-Therese Nanlong
The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN has denied scarcity of the new naira notes as alleged by some Nigerians and ordered citizens to deposit the old notes at commercial banks and acquire new ones with immediate effect to avoid any losses as the deadline approaches.
The CBN Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele who addressed journalists in Jos, Plateau State through the bank’s Director, Payment System Management Department, Musa Jimoh stated that redesigning the currency shows that the CBN was working by the global standard where currency notes ought to be redesigned within five years, though it took Nigeria, nine years since the last change was effected.
Speaking during the ‘monitoring and sensitization’ campaign held on Tuesday, the Director stressed that the redesigning of the country’s larger denominations namely the 200, 500, and 1000 naira notes was a national project to solve problems related to cash circulation due to the prolonged savings in piggy banks, cash hoarding and incidences of fake currencies.
He also mentioned that a massive supply of new notes was made to commercial banks to dispense both at counters and ATMs to enable quick circulation and further advised the commercial banks to desist from keeping the cash away from the public.
According to the Director, “the Monitoring and Sensitization project was activated by the apex bank for investigation of the attitude of banks towards the spread of the new currencies, creation of awareness and the use of agents to circulate the cash in communities with few or no bank branches available.”
He advised that faulty currencies be returned to banks for replacements and cautioned people entertaining the thought that the CBN might extend the deadline to desist as they could face losses as the Governor has not mentioned it.
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