The Central Bank of Nigeria, on Thursday, admitted that the ongoing scarcity associated with the naira redesign and cash withdrawal policy was not anticipated.
This came amid numerous protests and attacks on banks by
angry Nigerians due to the inability to access cash for their regular
transactions.
A Deputy Governor of the bank, Folashodun Shonubi, made the
admission at the 22nd fellowship conferment lecture and ceremony organised by
the Nigerian Society of Engineers in Abuja.
The lecture was titled, “The intricacies of the naira
redesign and its benefit to Nigerians”.
He explained that contrary to public opinion, the redesign
plan which has been in the works for two years was not to punish anyone but to
improve the economy.
The deputy governor who stated that challenges faced were
caused by a new line of business created by indigenous Nigerians, revealed that
numerous benefits have been achieved which include retrieval of N2 trillion to
the banking system.
He said, “As you know, Nigerians are very ingenious. And we
created a whole new line of business for people that we never envisaged.
“An aspect of that is queuing, where you sell your position
on the queue for money. Night crawling, where you wait till night, collect
numerous cards from your friends and family and go to an ATM and empty them
using different cards and then take the cash to sell.
“So it’s been a bit stressful to be honest because we did
not anticipate this kind of behaviour.”
Shonubi, however, noted the necessary challenges will soon
be of the past adding that the apex bank will do everything within its powers
to salvage the current situation.
“I believe that sooner rather than later, the stress ongoing
in relation to money would reduce,” he concluded.
0 comments:
Post a Comment