‘Some Nigerians hoarding new notes’ — CBN explains reason for naira scarcity

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has attributed the scarcity of the redesigned naira notes to hoarding by citizens.

Rashidat Monguno, director, consumer protection department of CBN, spoke on Thursday in Kwara while monitoring the compliance of microfinance banks to the apex bank’s naira redesign policy.

She said the redesigned notes were made available by the CBN but hoarding made the currency scarce.

She said Nigerians now throng banks to collect money almost at the same time.

“Because of the attitude of some Nigerians in hoarding the money, even those that don’t really need the money are rushing to get it and keep, not to spend,” NAN quoted Monguno as saying.

”Currency management is a cycle but we have not allowed the cycle to mature, because when you issue out currency as CBN, what we expect is that the naira issued will come back into the banking system again.

“But now, everybody collecting the naira is hoarding it. So, no matter how much naira we put out there, if we continue with this attitude and the CBN issue (new notes) from now till December, it will still not be enough.

”And you know that in every economy, you must have proper accountability on the indent.

”You just don’t issue naira for the fun of it, you issue the amount that is commensurate with the level of activity you have in that country.”

The CBN director said the situation could only get better when people start spending the money they already hoarded.

She insisted that there was enough money in circulation.

”There is naira out there. I have been in Kwara for over three weeks and we have been allocating money daily,” Monguno said.

“The truth is that if the currency is circulating the way it should and not being hoarded, we shouldn’t have a problem.

”The only thing is for us to change our attitude because it can only get better when people start spending the money they have hoarded.”

Monguno added that the objective of the naira redesign policy was not to punish anyone but to improve the economy.