It has been alleged that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)
will spend about N40.3billion to produce its new coins and Naira notes.
Out of the
amount, N11.8billion will be spent on the new N20, N10 and N5 coins.
“The bank
is spending over N40billion on the production of new coins and notes.” a member
of the board of the CBN disclosed to Punch Newspaper.
“The
N40billion is the total sum for the production of the coins and the new
notes” stated the CBN Board member, who does not want to identified
statedthe board member added.
According
to the source, the CBN, at its board meeting two months ago decided that most
of the new notes and coins would be printed by the Nigerian Security Printing
and Minting Company.
The
meeting agreed that only the N5,000 note would be printed by a foreign firm
which had “the technology and the capacity to handle the sensitive features in
it.”
The CBN
had on Thursday announced a comprehensive review of the country’s currency
called Project Cure. The apex bank annonuced that it will be introducing the
N5,000 note as the highest denomination by 2013, while N5, N10 and N20 notes
will be coverted to coins.
The new
coins will join the 50k, N1 and N2 coins already in existence but which
Nigerians hardly use.
The source
further revealed that some workers of the CBN would be laid off during a
forthcoming retrenchment exercise.
The CBN
Board member who does not want to identified stated “consultants are already
meeting with the various departments to select five to 10 percent of members of
staff to be laid off.”
“They are
doing this in the pretext of normalising staff aggregated appraisal graph
through the Head of Departments. The HODs are the ones who determine who to go
in their directorates. They are doing it under the pretext that it would be
used to categorise staff for productivity bonus payment.”
The
CBN governor, Mr.Lamido Sanusi, at the press conference, where he
announced the new structure of the Naira, had declined to give the cost of
printing the currency.
He said
that the cost would be seen in the CBN’s balance sheet at the end of the year.
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