The report that new banknotes began circulating as planned yesterday with hiccups experienced in the supply of the new notes across the country dominates the headlines of Nigerian newspapers on Friday.
The Guardian reports that new banknotes began circulating as planned, yesterday. Supply across the country, however, was scanty or non-existent in some areas. Banks, which received an influx of customers, some of who deposited old cash in exchange for a replacement, complained of low disbursement. Across-the-counter withdrawals were mainly in old notes, even as customers requested payment in the new currencies.
A few banks that had supply rationed the new notes. At Coker, Lagos, a customer, who requested N120,000, received N4,000 in new N500 bills, while the balance came in the old notes.
Supply was scarce, with Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) across the country still dispensing old notes. The Guardian was informed that the machines were yet to be reconfigured.
While banks grappled with limited supply, some early handlers of the notes had difficulty transacting with them as some individuals, especially in informal settings, turned down the bills.
“After leaving the banking hall, I made efforts to spend the new notes but people rejected them,” a bank customer in Lagos, told The Guardian. Earlier in the day, a video showing a bus operator in Lagos rejecting the new N1,000 bill from a female passenger went viral. The lady, who was headed for work, had boarded the commercial vehicle but was required to disembark.
As Nigerians await full circulation of the freshly styled naira, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Godwin Emefiele, wrote the House of Representatives, assuring he would soon brief the lawmakers on the bank’s monetary policies.
Emefiele had been expected to appear before the legislators, yesterday, to defend the apex bank’s withdrawal limit, a follow-up policy to the naira redesign. The limit, which is scheduled to begin January 9, 2023, would reduce maximum daily cash withdrawal to N20,000.
The newspaper says that stakeholders in the Nigerian economic system have said the only way out of the persistent rise in inflation rate is for a total overhaul of the nation’s economic policy.
The stakeholders, who were reacting to the November 2022 consumer price index (CPI) released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), yesterday, said it was time to go back to the drawing board to find out where the problem is.
According to the report by NBS, Nigeria’s inflation rate rose for the 10th consecutive month in November to 21.47 per cent from 21.09 per cent recorded in October 2022.
Mrs. Titilayo Fowokan, a council member of the Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria (CITN), told The Guardian in a telephone interview that what the persistent rise in inflation shows is that the nation has consistently got its economic policies and programmes wrong.
According to her, “you can’t continue to do the same thing and expect a different result. This is the time to lay the cards on the table, bring in economic experts to examine our system, spot the problem and proffer solutions. ”
She said Nigeria cannot continue like this because the high cost of things is taking a toll on the people and has negatively affected their living standards.
“This rise in inflation is having a toll on the livelihood of the people and lowering our living standards. We need to go back to the drawing board, we’ve also been having fuel scarcity every now and then, can’t we find a lasting solution to it?”
The founder and chief executive officer of Center for the Promotion of Private Enterprise (CPPE), Dr. Muda Yusuf, said tackling inflation requires urgent government intervention to address the challenges bedeviling the supply side of the economy.
“We need to address the issue of production and productivity constraints, we need to fix the dysfunctional forex policy, and institution of fiscal reforms to curb escalating deficit spending,” Yusuf said, adding, “to give producers and citizens some relief, the government could tweak the tariff policies by granting concessionary import duty on intermediate products for industrialists, especially those in the food processing segments of the agriculture value chain.”
The Punch reports that the Federal Government and operators in the downstream oil sector are all culpable for the nationwide prolonged scarcity of the premium motor spirit, popularly called petrol, the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria has said.
Oil sector operators in the downstream include: the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, as well as major and independent oil marketers, depot owners, among others.
PENGASSAN, a major union in the oil sector, also stated that the operators were looking for ways to hike the cost of PMS, but stressed that this would be opposed by the union.
The union’s President, Festus Osifo, spoke in Abuja on Thursday at PENGASSAN’s national executive council meeting that was called to address the implications of the numerous challenges confronting Nigeria and oil workers.
The group further opposed the proposed increase in the salaries of lawmakers and other politicians, while calling on the Federal Government to halt its ‘reckless borrowing’.
Speaking on the incessant fuel shortages and price hike, Osifo said, “The persistent shortages of PMS across the country has become a source of pain to the Nigerian people as the current shortages are being perpetuated by players in the downstream sector in order to hike the price far above the government approved threshold.
“It is an added problem when non-state actors begin to arrogate to themselves the power to determine the price of a litre of fuel far above the rate pegged by the government in the current subsidy regime.
“It is more disturbing that the government is equally demonstrating high level of culpability in the unwholesome situation by its silence and unwillingness to frontally and publicly address the harrowing experiences of Nigerians in the current situation, because no concerned and responsive government will bury its head in the sands like the proverbial ostrich while the citizens are being brutally exploited.”
He said PENGASSAN was ready and willing to collaborate with the Federal Government and assist in all ways possible to overcome the country’s present challenges.
The newspaper says that US President Joe Biden threw his support on Thursday behind a larger African role in the world as he also vowed to champion democracy in a continent where China and Russia have enjoyed rising clout.
Biden, while announcing $100 million for security, also said the United States would invest $75 million to counteract “democratic backsliding” including by strengthening electoral authorities and civil society.
On Wednesday, Biden met jointly with the leaders of six nations that hold elections next year including Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo, sub-Saharan Africa’s largest countries in population and size respectively, to seek promises on free elections.
“The United States is all in on Africa and all in with Africa,” Biden told nearly 50 African leaders who have spent three days in a wintry Washington summit that featured a gala White House dinner.
“Africa belongs to the table in every room — every room for global challenges that are being discussed,” Biden said.
Biden, who in September called for an African permanent seat on the UN Security Council, backed a permanent African Union role in the Group of 20 economies and said he was planning a visit — the first by a US president since 2015 — to sub-Saharan Africa.
The summit is the first of its kind since African leaders came in 2014 to see Barack Obama.
China for the past decade has eclipsed the United States as an investor, and Russia in recent years has sent in mercenaries and sought diplomatic support against Western pressure.
Biden announced $2.5 billion in new assistance on food as price increases lead to hunger across the continent, especially in the drought-struck Horn.
“Russia’s brutal war in Ukraine has led to the disruption of food and energy supplies that affect all of our economies,” Vice President Kamala Harris told a luncheon.
She told African leaders that “international rules and norms are under threat — for example, sovereignty and territory integrity, unimpeded commerce and peaceful resolution of disputes.”
GIK/APA