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Senate Calls Sanusi to Order Over N5,000 Note Project

By on August 28, 2012

Lawmakers

In a remarkable pro-people move, the Nigerian Senate has ordered the Governor of the Central Bank, Mallam Lamido Sanusi, to suspend all plans to launch the N5,000 bank note.

The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Currency and Other Financial Insitutions, Bassey Otu, also ordered the CBN governor to suspend all plans geared towards the restructuring of the Nigerian currency.

Otu said yesterday, that a memo would be dispatched to the CBN governor asking him to halt all plans until the lawmakers were briefed.

Otu said, “We will be sending a letter to CBN to stop all further actions until the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is properly briefed.

“We have not been properly briefed and we don’t know the reason for it; even though at the moment, we do know that inflation is really a problem but I don’t think we have used all the mechanisms we have to tackle it and it’s not really out of hand.

“I believe that a project of this nature requires parliamentary approval because there are numerous monetary and fiscal implications on the nation’s economy.

“This type of action is only taken where there is a major currency crisis and the CBN must be careful in order not to send a wrong signal or message to households or the domestic sector or even the external economies that the Nigerian currency is valueless which I believe is definitely not and that for every unit of value, they need to carry a large quantity of cash.”

“I believe that we have to be well briefed on this. Also in 2005, the CBN undertook a major currency restructuring which ran into billions of naira.  Till date, a proper value has not been done to know its cost to the Nigerian taxpayers and the extent of the benefits in that 2005 coinage.  I think it did not work at all because goldsmiths and blacksmiths converted the coins to molding bangles, earrings and so on.

“So, we believe that the coinage works very well where there is infrastructure to take it like a half, probably like parking where you go and put it. We have not developed that real basic infrastructure and those coins, most of them are nowhere to be found. So, the CBN will have to prove that the policy is not a clear contradiction or at variance with its cashless society, which they are even yet to justify and whether this is the popular economic way to go.”

One Comment

  1. Nura Mohammed Kamfut

    August 28, 2012 at 2:24 pm

    D senators have done d right thing bcos I believe most of us (Nigerians) are not in support of d introduction of dis note & d conversion of d lower notes in to coins. Since we are practising democracy, our decision thru our representatives at d national assembly, should b respected. D executive should on their own part consider d implication of going ahead wiz dis issue bcos is not in our interest & it will never be. D NA should b firm in their decision & never allow dis unpopular policy 2 c d light of d day.