New cash withdrawal policy not done for political reasons – CBN

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has said the new cash withdrawal limits policy of the apex bank was done for political reasons.

Naija News reports that the CBN, on Wednesday evening, increased the maximum weekly limit for cash withdrawal across all channels to N500,000 and N5,000,000.

However, there are insinuations that the new policy of the bank apex was done to curb vote buying in the forthcoming 2023 general elections.

But the CBN Deputy Governor in charge of Financial Stability, Aisha Ahmad, has said the new cashless policy was done in the interest of the country and not targeted at anyone.

Ahmad who represented the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele said this on Thursday when she appeared before members of the House of Representatives.

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She said the policy will also check money laundering, reduce the cost of processing cash, the cost of minting new notes as well as the cost of destroying old tenders.

Ahmed also explained available data indicate that 94 percent of all cash transaction falls within the new limit of N500,000 and 82 percent of corporate cash transactions fall below the new limit indicated for corporate bodies.

She said the implication is that about 84 percent of individuals will not be affected by the cash withdrawal limit.

Ahmad added that the processing fee on the excess withdrawal will only be charged against the extra cash and not the entire sum.

She said as a result of feedback from Nigerians and the concerns raised by the House, the apex bank raised the weekly withdrawal limit from N100,000 to N500,000.

Outrage as CBN says it doesn’t know quantity of new naira notes printed

Earlier, a lawmaker, Sada Soli during the House session had lamented the non-availability of the new notes to the public days after it was launched and asked Ahmad to disclose the quantities of new notes printed.

Responding, Ahmad said she doesn’t know the volume or amount of new naira notes printed by the apex bank in the newly redesigned country’s currency.

The CBN official declared that she doesn’t know the exact amount and the number of notes printed and doesn’t want to give a wrong figure.

She also failed to answer the question of how much was spent on producing the re-designed naira notes.

Her submission caused a rowdy session among the lawmaker in the Green Chamber of the House.