We allocate new notes to banks daily, hoarding behind scarcity — CBN

THE Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Thursday attributed has said it allocates new naira notes to banks daily, blaming hoarding of the new notes for the scarcity.

The CBN director, Consumer Protection, Mrs Rashidat Mongunu, made this disclosure on while monitoring microfinance banks in Offa, Offa Local Government Area of Kwara.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the monitoring team first paid homage to the Olofa of Offa, Oba Mufutau Gbadamosi, before heading to Stockcorp Microfinance and Ibolo Microfinance banks.

She said the redesigned notes were already made available by the CBN, stress- ing that some people hoard- ing the notes are the ones creating artificial scarcity.

Mongunu stated: ”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.

“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 out 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 from now till December, it will still not be enough.

”And you know that in every economy, you must have a proper accountability on the indent. You just don’t issue out naira for the fun of it, but you issue the amount that is commensu- rate with the level of activi- ty you have in that country.”

Continuing, she added that the situation could only get better when people start to spend money already hoarded because enough money was already in circulation.

Responding, Olofa of Offa, Oba Gbadamosi, said the extension of the legality of the old notes from January 31 to February 10 was responsible for the problems people are facing currently.