The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), has spent a whopping ₦281.07 billion to print bank notes between 2016 and 2020 and another ₦3.88 billion to destroy mutilated notes within the same period, Africa Today News, New York has gathered.
Data obtained from the apex bank on Friday showed that ₦33.37 billion had been deployed to print new notes in 2016, the amount expended increased to ₦49.52 billion and ₦64.04 billion 2017 and 2018. By the end of 2019, ₦75.52 billion had been spent on printing new naira notes as the amount spent declined in 2020 to ₦58.07 billion.
Over the same five-year period, Africa Today News, New York reports that the central bank spent about ₦3.88 billion to destroy ₦4.197 trillion. ₦1.44 billion was spent in 2016 to dispose of mutilated naira notes with a value of ₦829.94 billion. The amount spent however dropped by almost half to ₦594.62 million spent in 2017 to destroy ₦977 billion.
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The money spent in disposing of ₦814.59 billion rose to ₦662.21 million in 2018 and declined slightly to ₦647.82 million that was used to dispose of ₦814.43 billion. In 2020, ₦538.59 million had been used to destroy ₦698.59 billion.
Recall that the CBN, Wednesday, announced plans to redesign and reissue the ₦1000, ₦500, and ₦200 currency denominations, in an effort to rein in inflation and take control of money supply in the country.
CBN governor Godwin Emefiele, who’d made this known also said the current naira notes will no longer be legal tender from January 31, 2023.
However, analysts have worried that this move is bound to put more pressure on the nation’s economy which is grappling with high fiscal deficit, debt crisis, severe revenue crisis, and underfunding of many government projects and programmes.
Meanwhile, a northern group under the agesis of the Concerned Northern Forum have on Thursday, in Kaduna State, frowned at the recent directive which had been made by the Central Bank Governor, to redesign some of the naira notes effective from December 15, 2022.