A former senator of Kaduna Central Senatorial District, Shehu Sani, has disclosed that banks in collaboration with politicians hoarded the new naira notes for vote-buying.
NewsOnline reports that Shehu Sani said unless the Central bank of Nigeria (CBN) takes decisive action the motive behind the naira redesign will be defeated.
Senator Sani said, “Banks are hoarding the new currency from the public with the intent of making it available for politicians next month to be able to buy votes.”
“The ultimate aim of redesigning the national currency is defeated,” he added.
Banks to pay one million naira daily for dispensing old naira notes – CBN
To enforce its directive earlier given to banks to start dispensing new naira notes from 9 January, the Central Bank of Nigeria has in a circular to local banks said dispensing of old naira notes to customers will attract a daily fine of one million naira.
READ ALSO: CBN WARNS COMMERCIAL BANKS AGAINST ATM DISPENSING OLD NAIRA
Adeleke Adelokun, a deputy director at CBN disclosed this on Friday while interacting with traders. Adeleke said the CBN has made the new naira notes enough and available to banks for dispensing, but wondered why the old naira notes remain largely in circulation.
Adeleke said, “As at today, CBN has printed enough new naira notes of N200, N500 and N1,000,” NAN quoted the CBN official as saying.
“But, what we discovered was that most of the banks that are supposed to collect the new notes have not collected them. So, we have put a sanction on the banks.
“Any bank that fails to collect the new notes from CBN will pay N1 million as sanction per box, per day and the amount they are to pay now will depend on the number of days they have not collected the notes.
“We also mandated the banks to put new naira notes in their ATMs all over Nigeria so that Nigerians will have access to the new naira notes.”
