As the uncertainties over the old naira notes linger, top officials of the apex bank, the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN are to meet on Monday to review the crisis that the naira redesign programme has generated and come up with solutions to the acute cash crunch that has nearly paralysed the country.
Sources say the meeting would also consider the advice given by the National Council of State that the apex bank should print more redesigned N1,000, N500 and N200 notes or re-circulate the old ones withdrawn from circulation in order to ease the current cash crunch.
It was learnt that the meeting, which will hold at CBN headquarters in Abuja, would involve the top echelon of the apex bank, and a fresh directive might be issued to Deposit Money Banks on whether to keep accepting deposits of the old notes or not.
An official of the CBN told newsmen that a decision would likely be made on the continuous circulation of the old notes at the meeting. He, however, said the advice to print more money would not be straightforward due to logistic reasons and the fact that the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Plc had capacity issues as regards the printing of the new notes.
Report says that the CBN was considering contracting foreign firms to print the redesigned naira notes as the Mint was unable to meet the demand for the currency, thus leading to the current nationwide scarcity.
It was reported that the Mint had succeeded in printing N500bn worth of the new N1,000, N500 and N200 notes and might not have the capacity to do more than that at the moment, whereas the CBN had withdrawn about N2.1tn of the old notes from circulation.
The apex bank official had said that the advice given by the Council of State would be weighed carefully vis-à-vis the security implications of the continued scarcity of the notes, the cost of printing more notes and re-circulating the old ones, and the implementation of the Supreme Court interim order that the old notes should be allowed to circulate alongside the new ones.
Meanwhile, confusion reigns over the acceptability or otherwise of the old notes as legal tender, going by the conflicting signals from the Federal Government, as the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN), had indicated that the Supreme Court order would be complied with, but also said it would be appealed.
Culled/Simeon Ugbodovon
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