Amid growing concern over the looming January deadline, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has embarked on a “cash swap exercise” to satisfy petty traders who may not be able to deposit their old Naira notes with commercial banks.
This is just as hordes of anxious customers besieged commercial banks across the state to deposit old naira notes and withdraw new naira notes.
When our correspondent visited some of the banks on Friday, a crowd of customers was seen sitting on the floor and several of them were in long queues waiting to be ushered into the banking halls.
Mr Sunny Daibo, the leader of the surveillance of the apex bank and representative of the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, disclosed to newsmen on Friday in Effurun, Uvwie Local Government Area of Delta, that the cash swap was between N5000 and N10,000 per individual.
Daibo, who is also the CBN Deputy Director of Finance, said that the essence of the exercise was also to encourage those without bank accounts to open one.
The team leader, who expressed displeasure over the attitude of the people embracing the cashless policy of the Federal Government, insisted that there would be no extension of the deadline on the deposition of the old Naira notes.
“As of today, no going back on the Jan. 31 deadline. Take your money to the bank and do your transaction online.
“Nigerians always wait till the last minute. This thing has been on since November. CBN says go and deposit your money in the bank. Some people will like to wait till the last minute,” he lamented.
Daibo said that the cashless policy would help in efficient monetary policy management and, by implication, the growth of the economy.
According to him, other benefits of the policy included: eliminating corruption; reducing counterfeiting; reducing criminality, discouraging stocking money at home and others.
“There are so many advantages to the cashless policy, gradually, we will get there.
“The policy is for the benefit of Nigerians. The cost of managing currency is enormous.
“We cannot continue to do things in the old ways and expect different results. We must do something in new ways. With this policy, every Nigerian can now open a bank account easily,” he said.
Daibo said that there was also a misconception that when a customer deposits a certain amount of old Naira notes, the person is expected to withdraw the same amount in the newly redesigned notes.
“If you deposit the old notes, the new cash withdrawal policy will be applied which is N500,000 weekly for individuals and N5 million for corporate bodies.
“The people are complaining that they are not seeing the new Naira notes,” he said.
Daibo said that the sensitisation team would go ahead to visit Warri North and Warri South-West on Saturday in continuation of the awareness campaign.
The team would also visit churches on Sundays to enlighten worshippers on the essence of the cashless policy.
Meanwhile, most of the commercial banks visited in Warri, although jam-packed, were giving out the new naira notes albeit piecemeal.
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