The presidential candidate of All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, has preferred solutions to the ongoing naira scarcity in the country.
Tinubu’s proposed solutions were contained in a statement he personally signed on Monday.
He said he and his running mate, Senator Kashim Shettima have nothing against the naira design and cashless policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) but were concerned about its disruptive implementation and the hardship it has brought on the generality of the people.
Tinubu said that the CBN could bring succour to Nigerians by heeding the advice of the Council of State “to push more new Naira notes into circulation and also allow for the old notes to remain a legal tender by ensuring supply gaps relative to infrastructural limitations are bridged by recirculating it to ameliorate the pains caused by the scarcity of new ones”.
He said that to bring succour to the people, the CBN should, following the advice of the Council of States, “announce that the old and new Naira notes (especially the non-withdrawn notes and coins) will co-exist as legal tender for the next 12 months to follow examples of countries that have successfully implemented similar monetary policy.
“This will immediately remove growing tension in the country, eliminate panic reactions by the populace and allow time to scale up infrastructural gaps around alternative payment options to cash.”
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Secondly, Tinubu advised the immediate suspension of associated charges on online transactions and bank transfers and payments via POS until the current crisis is fully resolved.
“This cost should be considered a roll-out expense by the CBN to incentivise the envisaged shift to alternative transaction channels; for both the financial services consuming public and those in charge of implementing the scale-up programme,” the APC candidate said.
Thirdly, he called for the mobilisation of all Money Deposit Banks and Payment platforms to show clear commitment and timelines on expanding their infrastructure and support services.
He further called on the CBN to bring in Fintech companies with capabilities into currency swap programme for the next 90 days to help decongest banking halls and ATM points where people line up for hours.
Tinubu equally advised the CBN and other relevant MDAs to form an Inter-Agency Action Committee for immediate oversight over the cash supply gaps from the Nigerian Security and Minting Company and deal with issues around capabilities and turn around time to meet the needs of the informal sector and unbanked people.
Lastly, he said the CBN, National Orientation Agency and Ministry of Information, State and Local Governments with their relevant organs in both the public and private sectors should commence a major public enlightenment and sensitisation campaign to further educate and empower our people on the new naira and cashless policy for better understanding and mainstream adoption.
“As leaders, our commitment to our country every day must be on how to make life better for our people and we are called upon not to waste the opportunity the moment presents to us to ramp up capacity and capability to serve 200 million Nigerians, leaving no one behind and ultimately improve the living conditions of every single Nigerian.
“Our task now is to restore hope in the country by implementing these steps to energise our people that we can do big things for a better future and shared prosperity.
We can build upon this citizen-focused policy challenge to offer a template on how governance should work for the people,” Tinubu said.