Ari Aisen and CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele
The International Monetary Fund has called on the Central Bank of Nigeria to extend the February 10 deadline for the phase out of old N200, N500 and N1000 notes as the nation’s legal tender.
“In light of hardships caused by disruptions to trade and payments due to the shortage of new banknotes available to the public, in spite of measures introduced by the CBN to mitigate the challenges in the banknote swap process, the IMF encourages the CBN to consider extending the deadline, should problems persist in the next few days leading up to the February 10, 2023 deadline.” IMF Resident Representative in Nigeria, Ari Aisen, said in a statement on Wednesday.
The CBN had initially set a January 31 deadline for the old notes and eventually extended it to February 10 following the continuous scarcity of the new notes.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court on Wednesday restrained the CBN from carrying on with the February 10 deadline for old notes.
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