By Ezinwanne Onwuka
It was in October 2022 that the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, announced its intention to redesign the currency, which it said was in the best interest of Nigerians to check terrorism financing, counterfeiting and imbalances in the fiscal space, and to enable the apex bank to take control of the currency in circulation.
*Buhari and EmefieleAs a result of the currency redesign, the CBN also set the maximum cash withdrawal limit via the Automated Teller Machines and point of sale, PoS, agents at N20,000 per day for individuals subject to N100,000 per week, instructing commercial banks to load only denominations of N200 and below into the ATMs.
Over-the-counter weekly cash
withdrawals by individuals and corporate organisations were equally pegged at
N100,000 and N500,000, respectively.
The mutually dependent currency
redesign and revised cash withdrawal policy were aimed at steering the country
into a full-fledged cashless economy by January 9, 2023.
Despite the policy’s prominent
goals, it remains a hot topic of debate in the country weeks after its
implementation. The new notes are insufficient, and there is a paucity of cash,
causing debates about the supposed benefits of the policy.
Long queues at banks’ ATM
galleries have become commonplace. The agent bankers or PoS merchants, who are
one of the major channels for distributing the new notes to the public, charge
exorbitantly. Hence, dissuading the public from using the channel, Nigerians
flood the ATMs, the only available avenue to get the new notes, to beat the
short deadline.
Despite the CBN governor, Godwin
Emefiele, announcing a ten-day extension to the deadline for Nigerians to say
goodbye to the existing currency notes in circulation, the cash crunch
persists.
Many Nigerians, like myself, had
thought that shifting the deadline from January 31 to February 10 would make
smooth the transition to a cashless economy and enable sweeping circulation of
the new notes, but the reverse is the case.
The situation is getting worse
every day. While the apex bank continues to claim it allocates more than enough
banknotes to deposit money banks daily and has authorised over-the-counter
payment of the new notes to salvage the situation, the banks are saying the new
notes are not available for disbursement.
Nigerians queue for long hours
at the ATMs, struggling to get their hands on the new notes with little or no
success accessing cash to meet their daily expenses as the machines are loaded
with a limited amount of the new banknotes and customers can only withdraw a
specified sum from the cash machines.
This fuels anger from
individuals, some of whom have vandalised bank property or stripped to their
underwear in rage in banking halls during working hours, according to videos
shared on social media.
Reacting to the plight of
Nigerians, President Muhammadu Buhari assured that before the new February 10
deadline elapses, there will be ‘significant improvements’. However, positive
impacts of the President’s promise on resolving the cash shortage have yet to
be felt nationwide, and the deadline for the mopping up of old naira notes has
been halted by the Supreme Court.
The shift in the deadline and
suspension would have been needless if such a good policy had not been erected
on a hasty implementation procedure or done without inflicting distress on
Nigerians.
It is disturbing that despite
the billions of new naira notes purportedly printed by the CBN and the diverse
channels the apex bank listed for the distribution of the new notes, the
transition to their usage is causing untold suffering to Nigerians. This is
supposed to be the prelude to a cashless economy, but the reality on the ground
says we are not yet ready for the transition. There are lamentations from all
corners.
Many Nigerians who would have
supported the cashless policy and the redesign of the naira are outraged by the
unreliability and ineffectiveness of the various electronic and digital banking
channels. This period would have been a major driver for the cashless policy,
but the pressure on the banking infrastructure, which has caused many servers
to fail, has exposed the lack of investment in technological infrastructure by
banks for digital payments and electronic banking.
Going cashless is not supposed
to be controversial in a fast-growing economy such as ours, but there are
doubts about whether the Emefiele-led CBN considered the unintended challenges
of implementing the cashless policy before embarking on the laudable
mission.
Funny enough, the apex bank
reportedly admitted that the disruptions in the economy caused by its cashless
policy measures were not anticipated and that it lacks the capacity to print
more new notes. Although it has since denied making this admission, suffice it
to say that the CBN’s transition to new currency notes, though
well-intentioned, seem to have landed us in a bottomless pit.
Regardless, I refuse to reckon
that little or nothing can be done to strategically arrest the crisis. Whether
the government deliberately introduced the policy as a political witch-hunt
targeted at some individuals to thwart their chances ahead of the forthcoming
general election, as has been alleged, is a matter for another day.
*Ezinwanne, a public policy analyst, wrote via: ezinwanne.dominion@gmail.com
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