The House of Representatives on Tuesday called on the Central Bank of Nigeria to extend deadline for its new naira policy to July 31st.
A 14-Man ad hoc Committee led by House Leader, Alhassan Ado-Doguwa, is to meet with the Managing Directors of Commercial Banks who complain of shortage of the new naira notes and the Central Bank Governor.
In October, 2022, the Central Bank of Nigeria announced plans to redesign N1000, N500 and N200 notes.
This was designed to improve the security of banknotes, control currency in circulation, mitigate counterfeiting and reduce the overall cost of currency management.
The bank insists the policy was long overdue and has become absolutely necessary.
But many Nigerians see the move as one of the measures by government to check outflow of funds, especially ahead of the 2023 general election.
But while many citizens applaud the policy, they raise concerns about the non availability of the new naira notes which became legal tender on December 15.
Barely one week to the deadline of currency swap, lawmakers lament the new naira notes are not in circulation
Rising on a matter of urgent public importance, Katsina member, Sada Soli, says the currency swap should be phased within one year
Other members are also in support of an extension of the currency swap
A bill by Edo lawmaker, Sergius Ogun, to amend the Fiscal Responsibility Act and another seeking to establish the Federal College of Agriculture, Ukanafun, in Akwa Ibom State, sponsored by Unyime Idem, passed second reading.
CBN INSISTS ON JANUARY 31ST DEADLINE FOR PHSING OUT OLD NAIRA NOTES
Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria , Godwin Emefiele , says the January 31st deadline for ending the use of the old naira notes will not be extended.
The Governor who made this known on the sidelines of the monetary policy committee meeting says adequate volume of the new currencies have been put in the system.
The monetary policy committee also pushed up key lending rates by 1% to 17.5% , the cash reserve requirement and liquidity ratio were however left unchanged at 32.5% and 30% respectively.
It’s the first monetary policy committee meeting of the year.
The monetary policy rate has once again been pushed up by one percent to 17.5%.
It was increased at the last meeting in November last year by one percent to 16.5%, owing to what the committee described as necessary considering prevailing economic conditions.
This time, the tightening stance is preferable because loosening could greatly undermine the gains of the last four rate hikes
Though inflation moderated year on year in December last year, the economy remained confronted with risk of hyperinflation with adverse consequences on general living standards.
The CBN governor says the January 31st deadline for stopping the use of the old currencies will not be extended.
He assures that an adequate volume of the new currencies have been given to the banks for onward disbursement to the public with super agents in unbanked communities for currency swop.
The governor says between N1.3 to N1.5Trillion in cash has now been deposited in the banks and it hopes this would have increased to 2trillion by the January 31st deadline.
Against the backdrop of allegations that 89trillion in collected stamp duties have been diverted, the governor says the information is false.
He says 370.68 billion is the total amount of stamp duties collected by the banks from 2016-date, out of which FIRS, has disbursed 226.45b to Federal Accounts Allocation Committee FAAC .
144.23b is the balance left in the stamp duty account.
The governor however says the bank has contracted 4 major audit firms to do a Forensic audit of the banks, on their stamp duty collection ,and anyone of them caught guilty of any infraction would be made to pay.
