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, N11.8billionwill be spent on the new N20, N10 and N5 coins.
“The bank is spending over N40billion on the production ofnew coins and notes.” a member of the board of the CBN disclosed
“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 whichhad “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 becoverted 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 CBNwould 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 selectfive to 10 percent of membersof 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.LamidoSanusi, 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 beseen in the CBN’s balance sheet at the end of the year.
PUNCH