SOME point-of-sale merchants (PoS) have resorted to increasing the commission on transactions regarding the new notes by 100 per cent barely five days to the expiration of the old N200, N500 and N1000 as legal tender.
The ICIR investigations today revealed that as most Nigerians scramble in a last-ditch effort to obtain the new notes, PoS merchants who have those notes are already making brisk business from them.
For a cash withdrawal of N5,000 that normally attracts a N100 commission, some PoS merchants with the new notes are now charging N200, just as they have upped the normal commission of N200 on a N10,000 withdrawal to N400.
“We are still not getting enough of the new notes from the banks. Even getting these new notes is a business secret now.That is why I have to increase my cost of transaction. I don’t even know how soon I will get new ones when I run out of these,” a PoS merchant, Yusuf Abdulraman, told The ICIR.
Abdulraman said he would stop collecting old notes on January 29, 2023, citing uncertainties surrounding slow circulation of the new notes as a reason.
Another PoS merchant, Nkemdirim Okafor, operating in the Kubwa area of the Federal Capital Territory, told The ICIR that he and his colleagues were not getting sufficient new notes from the banks, citing it as a reason for the 100 per cent rate hike.
“I have to do the rate hike to sustain my business. As we speak, people are still coming and looking for the new notes. I don’t even have much of them,” she said.
Checks with some other PoS merchants in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, indicated many of them had also set target dates to stop collection of the expiring notes.
“By Sunday, I will stop collecting the old notes. Banks are still issuing the new to us sparingly, lower than what was requested,” another PoS merchant, Uju Ezenwa, at the Central Market in Kubwa, Abuja, told The ICIR.
There is widespread concern across the country as the legal tender deadline for the old notes gradually sets in. Many automated teller machines (ATMs) our correspondent visited this week were not dispensing the new notes at all. A few of them seen dispensing, like the Stanbic IBTC branch on Ajose Adeogun Street, Victoria Island, Lagos, were giving out only the redesigned N1,000 note.
Many citizens said they were yet to set their sight on the redesigned N200 and N500 notes.
Arising from the deadline concern nationwide, the two chambers of the National Assembly at plenary on Tuesday, January 24, 2023, asked the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to extend the street life of the old notes.
The House of Representatives and the Senate, in separate resolutions, on Tuesday asked the apex bank to extend the deadline till July 31, citing possible economic dislocation of several unbanked Nigerians in their constituents.
Besides the National Assembly, Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State also on Wednesday, January 25, 2023, called for the extension of the deadline, saying even he was yet to see the newly redesigned notes.
Meanwhile, the CBN has denied scarcity of the new naira notes, as is the complaint by some Nigerians.
The CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, represented by its Director, Payment System Management Department, Musa Jimoh, debunked the scarcity allegation in a news conference held on Wednesday, January 25, 2023 in Jos, the Plateau State capital.
”The CBN has massively supplied the new notes to commercial banks to dispense, both at counters and ATMs.
”This is to enable quick circulation, and we want to advise commercial banks to desist from keeping the cash away from the public, or face stiffer sanctions,” Jimoh said.
Emefiele advised citizens to deposit their old notes at any commercial bank and acquire new ones with immediate effect, while insisting that the January 31 deadline remained sacrosanct.
The CBN governor explained that the decision to redesign the currency showed that the apex bank was in tandem with global standard, adding that currency notes ought to be redesigned every five years.
Speaking during a ‘monitoring and sensitisation’ exercise held in some locations in Jos on Wednesday, January 25, Emefiele said that the decision to redesign the country’s higher denominations of currency was a national project aimed at addressing problems related to cash circulation.
He added that it would also solve the challenge of prolonged savings in piggy banks, cash hoarding, and incidences of fake currencies.
“The Monitoring and Sensitisation project was activated by the apex bank for investigation of the attitude of banks towards the spread of the new currencies.
”We are equally using it to create awareness on the use of agents to circulate the cash in communities with few or no bank branches available,” he explained.
He advised that distorted currencies should be returned to banks for replacement, and cautioned people entertaining the thought that the apex bank might extend the deadline to banish such thinking as they could face losses.
Harrison Edeh is a journalist with the International Centre for Investigative Reporting, always determined to drive advocacy for good governance through holding public officials and businesses accountable.