CBN To Phase Out Polymer Naira Notes By June

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) will stop printing the naira in
polymer notes by the middle of the year because they fade
quickly, its deputy governor Tunde Lemo has said.“By the
middle of the year, we will start to produce the second
generation of lower denomination notes, now in paper not in
polymer,” he told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) yesterday
in Washington on the sideline of the ongoing Spring Meeting of
the World Bank and the IMF.“My plea is that Nigerians should
exercise patience with us; it wasn’t the fault of the CBN, it was
just because we had to go back to the drawing board to rethink
‘Project Cure’ in the light of the wish of the public that we
should not go ahead with the N5000 notes and lower
denomination.“We will correct that in the course of the year.
Polymer certainly will be phased out. In fact, we are phasing
out polymer. No new note is being printed in polymer
now.”Lemo told NAN that when the
CBN was going to introduce the polymer currencies, its search
showed that they could last longer than ordinary paper
notes.“So, part of `Project cure’ actually was actually to move
away from polymer substrate to paper, unfortunately we had a
push-back because of the issues around N5000 note and coins.
The entire program was put in abeyance, otherwise by now we
should have stopped producing polymer,” he said. Lemo said
the CBN had awarded a contract for the printing of the higher
denomination notes to a foreign company because of low
capacity at the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting
Company.He said the CBN would begin to receive the fresh
notes from June.On the campaign on the careful handling of
the naira, Lemo said that it was unfortunate that the campaign
was not successful, but noted that it was a criminal act to
abuse the naira going by the CBN Act.“Unfortunately, CBN is
not a law enforcement institution; we left that in the hands of
the
law enforcement institutions and that has not kicked in,” he
said. “I still go to parties and see people spraying money,
stepping on money, I see touts distributing mint-fresh money
that should go to customers.”Lemo also said the CBN had
talked to the police to step up its surveillance to reduce the
abuse of the naira adding that the bank had no right to arrest
people who sold the naira on the streets. (NAN)