Nigeria’s prevailing economic recession has forced the Central Bank
of Nigeria (CBN) to suspend printing of small naira denominations for about a
year, leading to the scarcity of the notes in the economy, sources at the apex
bank have disclosed.
The
News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), citing sources at the CBN, reports that for a
year now, the apex bank did not award contract for the printing of the notes
such as N5, N10, N20 and N50 usually done abroad.
According
to NAN, the recently printed notes in circulation, including N200, N500 and
N1,000, were produced by the Nigeria Security Printing and Minting (NSPM) Plc.
Sources
attribute the high cost of printing banknotes as the reason the apex bank did
not award contracts for their production.
“The
cost of printing N50 is almost the same as N1,000 but printing small
denominations costs more than the value and with the present economic
situation, it makes sense to print higher notes, which can be done locally by
NSPM,” a source said.
Confirming
the scarcity of the small naira denominations in the country, a worker at the
First Bank Plc said that there were hardly smaller currency notes to give to
customers throughout the 2016 festive seasons.
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