The Central Bank of
Nigeria (CBN) says customers should demand new naira notes from their
respective banks and reject dirty ones.
Speaking
in an interview with NAN in Lagos on Thursday, Isaac Okorafor, CBN spokesman,
said commercial banks are sabotaging its effort in replacing mutilated notes
with new ones.
The
bank made similar claims in February.
Okorafor
said the apex bank is aware of the development and has taken several measures
in addressing the issue of mutilated notes in the circulation.
According
to him, one of the steps taken to mop up the mutilated notes from the system
was reduction in the amount CBN charges banks for sorting the dirty notes for
clean ones from N12,000 to N1,000 per box.
Okorafor
said the reduction in charges for the commercial banks which lasted for three
months from January 2 to March 28 was to encourage them to bring back more
dirty notes.
He
said the charges were raised to N2,000 per box after the March 28 deadline.
The
director said the opportunity was limited to lower denomination naira notes
comprising N50, N20 N10 notes.
He
said the bank has adopted another option of withdrawing the unfit notes
from circulations rather than depending on the commercial banks.
The
bank is now engaging various market associations to encourage traders change
genuine dirty notes for new ones at no cost to the trader.
“The
bank has already taken the new measure to Kano, Kaduna and Abuja and also
intends to bring it to the south,” he said.
He
appealed to Nigerians to handle the national currency with care as it was a
symbol of identity and value.
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