AJOKE PHILIP
After widespread outrage of spending N58.6billion to print N2.5billion, the Central bank of Nigeria (CBN) said it destroyed N4.13 trillion worth of dirty currency notes with N3.88bn in the last six years.
CBN disclosed this in its released Annual Report 2020 as compiled by the CBN’s Currency Operations Department.
According to the report, the disposed currency is part of its statutory activities to ensure only clean Naira notes are in circulation.
“The Bank sustained banknotes disposal operations in 2020 to ensure the circulation of clean banknotes. In furtherance of this objective, it deployed eleven (11) Banknote Destruction Systems (BDS) and three (3) Currency Disintegrating Systems (CDS) for currency disposal activities in the period under review,” CBN said.
The report breakdown shows in 2016, CBN disposed of 358,877 boxes of unfit Naira notes worth N829.9 billion.
In 2017, the apex bank disposed of 257,501 boxes of bad naira notes worth N977.2 billion.
In 2018 and 2019, a total of 181,217, and 157,217 boxes were destroyed worth N814.5 billion and N814.4 billion respectively.
Last year, the report showed that a total of 151,427 boxes valued at N698.5 billion was disposed.
Cost of Currency Disposal
A further breakdown from the report showed that disposing of the bad currency wasn’t cheap. In 2016, CBN says it spent N1.43 million and N594.62 million in 2017.
In 2018, disposing bad notes cost N662.21 million before dropping again in 2019 to 647.82 million. In 2020, the sum of N538.59 million was incurred on currency disposal activities.
Mutilated notes disposed and replaced
CBN also said that a total of 79,993 pieces of mutilated banknotes of various denominations valued at N52.82 million was audited, disposed and replaced in 2020, compared with 865,775 pieces valued at N45.99 million in 2019.
This represented a 90.76 percent and 14.85 percent decrease, in volume and value terms, respectively.