The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), has denied that there is a shortage of printing materials for new naira notes.
A top banker had earlier stated that information available to him indicated that the Mint had succeeded in printing N500 billion worth of the new N1,000, N500 and N200 notes and might not have the capacity to do more than that at the moment.
“Is it not obvious that the NSPMC does not have the capacity to print more than N500bn? With the Mint’s current capacity, to print N2 trillion will take about a year. Even the N500 billion printed has been hijacked by politicians, especially governors. You heard one governor saying one of his colleagues was able to withdraw N500 million.
“What the CBN is doing is to give us only 10% of the worth of the old notes we deposit with it. For instance, if a bank takes N1 billion to the CBN branch office in its area of operation, it will be given N100m new notes to distribute to its branches nationwide and load onto its ATMs,” the official who spoke on condition of anonymity said.
Reacting to the statement, the Director of Corporate Communications, CBN, said such reports that may have been credited to Governor Godwin Emefiele of the central bank, as well were misquoted.
According to him, Emefiele only informed the council of state that the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Company Plc was working to print all naira denominations to accommodate Nigerians’ transaction needs.
“The attention of the CBN has been drawn to a misleading report misquoting the Governor, Godwin Emefiele, as attributing the current challenge in the distribution of the newly redesigned naira banknotes to a shortage of printing materials at the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Company Plc.
“We wish to state categorically that at no time did the CBN Governor disclose this during his presentation to the National Council of State at its meeting on Friday, February 10, 2023,” the statement said.
“For the avoidance of doubt, the CBN remains committed to performing its monetary policy functions, as stipulated in the CBN Act, 2007, as amended. We also wish to restate that the NSPMC has the capacity and enough materials to produce the required indent of the naira,” the CBN chief clarified.
