Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, on Tuesday said the apex bank will not extend the deadline to halt the use of the old 200, 500 and 1000 Naira notes.
Emefiele said this during the CBN/Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) briefing in Abuja.
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He noted;
I don’t have good news for those who feel we should shift the deadline; my apologies,
The reason is because 90 days should be enough for those who have the old currency to deposit it in the banks.
The deadline for the termination of the old Naira notes as legal tender is January 31st, 2023.
Also at the meeting, the CBN raised the Monetary Policy Rate (MPR), which measures interest rate, to 17.5 percent.
The MPC raised the monetary policy rate by 100 basis point to 17.5% and kept the asymmetric corridor at +100/-700 basis points around the MPR.
Senate Appeal
Meanwhile, the Senate on Tuesday appealed to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CNN) to extend the deadline for the exchange of old naira notes from the January 31 deadline to July 31, 2023.
The apex bank had on October last year, said the old naira notes would cease to be legal tender as from January 31 but the Senate in December passed a resolution urging the CBN to extend the deadline to June 30.
However, worried by the insistence of the apex bank that there would be no such extension, Senator Sadiq Umar moved a motion on the floor of the red chamber on Tuesday demanding the extension to July 31.
Most senators, who contributed to the debate, overwhelmingly embraced the extension, citing scarcity of the new notes both in the banks and at the various automated teller machine (ATM) points across the country.
The President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, put the prayers in the motion to vote and the lawmakers voted in support of the extension of the deadline from January 31 to July 31.
