N5, N10, N20, N50 paper notes coming, says CBN;





The Central Bank Naira is poised to stop the printing of small denomination Naira in polymer notes, because they fade quickly.


Its Deputy Governor, Mr Tunde Lemo, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday in Washington on the sideline of the ongoing Spring Meeting of the World Bank and the IMF. He said,


``My plea is that Nigerians should exercise patience with us; it wasn’t the fault of the CBN, it was just because we had to go back to the drawing board to rethink `Project Cure’ in the light of the wish of the public that we should not go ahead with the N5000 notes and lower denomination…We will correct that in the course of the year. Polymer certainly will be phased out. In fact, we are phasing out polymer. No new note is being printed in polymer now.’’


Lemo told NAN that when the CBN was going to introduce the polymer currencies, its search showed that they could last longer than ordinary paper notes. He said the CBN had awarded a contract for the printing of the higher denomination notes to a foreign company because of low capacity at the Nigerian Printing and Minting Company, and that the CBN would begin to receive the fresh notes from June.


On the campaign on the careful handling of the naira, Lemo said that it was unfortunate that the campaign was not successful, but noted that it was a criminal act to abuse the naira, going by the CBN Act.


“I still go to parties and see people spraying money, stepping on money, I see touts distributing mint-fresh money that should go to customers.’’





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