The Senate on Wednesday appealed to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to extend the cash withdrawal limit policy implementation to June 30, 2023.
The Senate made the appeal following the adoption of a motion sponsored by Senator Ali Ndume from Borno South.
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Leading debate on the motion, Senator Ndume said that the timing of the policy was wrong, noting that since the beginning of the implementation of the cash withdrawal limit, the new notes were not in circulation even in cities, how much more in the villages.
According to him: “First of all it is a general public opinion that the old notes must not be withdrawn from circulation by January ending because it will pose a serious problem.
“We had this problem in 1984 and we don’t want to have a repeat of that experience. There is no hurry in closing the exchange of old currency with the new ones. It is a good idea to have a better Nigeria notes.
“I am in support of it but the timing is what I object to. Nigerians don’t have banking facilities everywhere, I said before and I am repeating it again now because time is getting close.
For example in Borno and Yobe states we don’t have many banks for effective implementation of the new policy. We have 27 local government areas and only five banks in those LGAs and we are known for trading and going from market to market to buy cash crops and other things there are no banks nor POS in those areas and the operational ones don’t even have network.
