The Civil Society Legislative and Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) yesterday faulted the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) decision to redesign and reissue new N200, N500 and N1000 notes.
Executive Director, CISLAC, Auwal Musa Rafsanjani, in a statement yesterday, said the CBN’s decision was not an economic priority and barely a solution to addressing Nigeria’s poor monetary policy challenges and growing economic woes.
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He said: “This is especially at a time when the country is grappling with huge fiscal deficits, a free fall of the naira, soaring inflation rates, multiple forex rates and rising borrowing costs.
“The reasons for this decision seem no different from those given for the forex demand management strategy which resulted in a non-satisfactory conclusion as the artificially low exchange rate failed to be as reflective of the market as possible to improve supply, but this time it only threatens damning economic consequences for Nigerians,” Rafsanjani said.
According to him, the public perception that this decision holds no value proposition for the economy, reiterates the tendency of the CBN to be distracted from fulfilling priority statutory obligations.
Rafsanjani said that so far, the macro-economic and monetary policies of the CBN had brought untold hardship to the productive and service sectors of the nation’s economy with consequential negative effects on the lives of citizens.
“The Apex Bank has floated multiple exchange rate regimes and has been accused of facilitating arbitrage between the parallel and official foreign exchange markets, providing huge financial patronage and extending forex-based favours to allies.
“Nigeria is grappling with the external pressures from the incapacity of the CBN to protect foreign exchange reserves from external outflows.”