The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) said it has disbursed over N120 million of the redesigned naira notes to rural communities in Katsina state to cushion the effect of the new policy.
Director of Currency Operations of the CBN, Alhaji Ahmed Bello Umar who disclosed this while briefing newsmen yesterday in Katsina, said the disbursement was through four designated banks.
“We had engagement with agents in Katsina; we have agents working for about four banks, all of them we allocated the sum of over N120 million of the new currency for disbursement to those agents.
“And the agents are supposed to collect from the banks N500, 000 per week to disburse in their communities. We know that there are some communities where there are no banks.
“And it’s difficult for people in those places to go and deposit their old currency to get the redesigned ones”, he said.
He said the apex bank had asked commercial banks to open throughout the weekend, including Sunday, to allow people to go and deposit their old notes before the deadline.
“We have also advised people that if they have challenges about banks, not opening or not disbursing new notes on their machines, to report them to CBN immediately so that we can send our monitoring team.
“And we assured the banks that we have money to go round for them to be able to carry out the exercise,” he said.
He also pointed out that there have been appeals by people for the extension of the deadline, but however said there are no new directives on the extension, hence, January 31 deadline remains
According to Umar, people have been advised to adhere to the deadline and deposit their old money so that they can always withdraw the new notes.
