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From Geoffrey Anyanwu, Enugu
The ongoing redesigning of the Nigerian currency, Naira would make the dollar more expensive says the former Deputy Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Prof. Kingsley Moughalu.
Moughalu who was responding to newsmen questions on Thursday in Enugu shortly after the public presentation of the UNN Business School at the Enugu campus of the university (UNEC) said the ape bank was discharging its statutory duty and was doing nothing new to warrant reprimand.
He said that the redesigning of the naira must have become necessary because of too much cash outside the banks which politicians might want to use to buy votes during the election.
The former CBN chief said because those hoarding the money would not like to return them to banks for fear of the unknown, they would use them to buy dollar thereby making dollar more expensive.
He said, “The Central Bank of Nigeria has the responsibility to issue and manage the legal tender. There is no other institution in Nigeria that has that function, so in making that decision, they are doing their job.
“Now you can question whether it will work or whether the timing is good or not, you can have that discussion but you cannot question the right of the Central Bank to do this and there have been several redesigns of the naira in our history, so this is not new.
“They must have judged for some reasons that it is necessary because the cash outside of the banks is too much and they feel that this is dangerous because it may mean that people are hoarding trillions of naira they may want to use it to buy votes when the time comes, we don’t know.
“So these are some of the reasons but there are some risks because a lot of the people hoarding the money will not want to put it back into the banking system. So they will go to buy dollars and that will make the dollar more expensive and we are seeing it now. So these are some of the prose and corns of this.”
