From Paul Osuyi, Asaba
With the deadline for the phasing out of the old naira denominations of N200, N500 and N1,000 fast approaching, traders at Oko Market in Asaba, Delta State on Thursday lamented the non-availability of the redesigned notes.
This is as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) intensified it’s sensitisation of stakeholders across the state on the  newly redesigned currency notes.
The CBN officials were also in Agbor and Warri where they harped on the urgent need for residents to quickly deposit their old denominations in the banks to beat the rush before January 31, 2023 when the old N200, N500 and N1,000  cease to be legal tenders.
They also visited commercial banks to ensure the dispensation of new notes   from the Automated Teller Machines (ATM).
But traders at the Oko Market largely populated by members of Arewa community, decried that the redesigned currency notes were not in circulation, during the awareness visit by CBN officials.
They urged the apex bank to make the currency notes available through ATM and POS cash dispensing outlets.
Addressing the traders branch controller of CBN in Asaba, Mr. Godwin Okafor  said currency management in Nigeria has faced several challenges that have continued to grow in scale and sophistication with unintended consequences for the integrity of both the CBN and the country.
Some of these challenges, he said,  include a significant hoarding of banknotes by members of the public, with statistics showing that N2.72 trillion out of the N3.26 trillion currency in circulation as of June 2022 was outside the vaults of commercial banks across the country, and supposedly held by members of the public.
“This statistic shows that 84.71 percent of currency in circulation are outside the vaults of commercial banks, with only 15.29 percent in the Central Bank and Commercial banks’ vaults.”
According to him, there is also the worsening shortage of clean and fit banknotes with attendant negative perception of the CBN and increased risk to financial stability and increasing ease by criminals and risk of counterfeiting  as evidenced by several security reports.
On the benefits of the currency redesign to the Nigerian economy, Okafor said  the exercise would bring the hoarded currency into the banking system, help to have much more accurate data on money supply and monetary
aggregates, as well as assist in the fight against corruption among others.
A director in the apex bank, Mrs. Elizabeth Amrovhe who presented the new notes to the traders, said the inbuilt security would make counterfeiting the redesigned legal tender much more difficult, adding that it is also impossible to photostat it.