The Olofa of Offa, Oba Mufutau Gbadamosi, has appealed to the Central Bank of Nigeria to make the new naira notes available to the people if it wants Nigerians to embrace the new policy.
Speaking in Offa on Thursday when the CBN monitoring team visited microfinance banks in Offa Local Government Area of Kwara state, Gbadamosi advised that “if the CBN wants the policy to be received with open arms and successful, the new naira notes should be made available for people to spend.”
The traditional ruler said that the extension of the legality of the old notes from January 31 to February 10 was responsible for the problems people were facing currently.
According to the Olofa, “People had already deposited all that they had in their possession on January 30 in anticipation to start spending the new notes on February 1, hoping that it would be available, but it’s not so.”
Director, Consumer Protection, CBN, Mrs Rashidat Mongunu, said the apex bank made available enough naira notes but hoarding of the new notes by some people was responsible for its scarcity and not that small quantity was issued out.
Mongunu, who led the team to pay homage to the Olofa of Offa before heading to Stockcorp Microfinance bank and Ibolo Microfinance bank, said the redesigned notes were already made available by the CBN.
He said, ‘’Because of the attitude of some Nigerians in hoarding the money, even those that don’t really need the money are rushing to get it and keep, not to spend.
‘’Currency management is a cycle but we have not allowed the cycle to mature, because when you issue out currency as CBN, what we expect is that the naira issued out will come back into the banking system again.
‘’But now, everybody collecting the naira is hoarding it. So, no matter how much naira we put out there, if we continue with this attitude and the CBN issues from now till December, it will still not be enough.
‘’You know that in every economy, you must have proper accountability on the indent. You just don’t issue out naira for the fun of it, you issue the amount that is commensurate with the level of activity you have in that country.”
SOURCE: THE PUNCH
