In furtherance of the effective implementation of naira redesign policy, the Gombe State branch of Central Bank of Nigeria said it had received and accordingly distributed additional supply of the new naira notes to banks, warning against corrupt practices in the state.
Disclosing this shortly in a press briefing, leader of the CBN Director of Development Finance, Philip Yila, who was represented by Deputy Director Aliyu Ashiru, said the meeting which had in attendance all heads of commercial banks discussed the distribution and utilisation strategy.
According to him, the meeting provided an opportunity for both the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and CBN officials to warn commercial banks against unwholesome practice.
Yila said, “The meeting was held to smoothen rough edges in the currency redesign policy. Overtime, we have had meetings with them where we drew up strategies as to how to drive the project.”
The CBN director noted that changes had been made to the implementation of the redesigned naira policy.
He said, “I think there have been changes to the implementation of the guidelines of the policy. There is now an OTC (Over the Counter) of N20,000 and the meeting was to explain to them the processes on how it works.
“There is a ratio we expect them to follow for all the cash; a ratio of 40-30-30. 40 per cent payment for agents, 30 per cent payment over the counter, and 30 per cent into their ATM machines.”
On the partnership of other security agencies especially the EFCC, the CBN said, “The EFCC and other security organisations have been partnering with us so that we can effectively drive the currency redesign project.”
Yila, while appraising the successes of the monitoring of the project, he said, “We had three broad objective to sensitise the public of the existence of such project.
“Secondly, to hammer on the deadline that was hitherto January 31st, we have engaged traditional and religious rulers, market people to actually sensitise them to the need to put their old notes into the banks. We are happy and I’m sure if you go to the villages, you will see alot of new notes with them.”
