The Senate has once again asked the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to extend the deadline for the phasing out of old naira notes.
At plenary on Tuesday, the lawmakers said the 31 January target date was unrealistic as banks were still dispensing old naira notes.
The senators also complained that Nigerians have been spending unproductive time in long queues at banks trying to exchange their old notes for new ones.
The House of Representatives also asked the CBN to extend the deadline at Tuesday’s plenary.
They were worried that banks do not have enough of the new notes, even as some businesses have started rejecting the old ones, putting Nigerians in a precarious situation.
The House, thereafter, set up an ad-hoc committee to meet with the central bank and money deposit banks over the shortage of the new notes.
The calls by both chambers of the National Assembly are coming the same day the CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele insisted the deadline for the stoppage of the old N200, N500, and N1,000 notes remained 31 January 2023.
Emefiele said this at the end of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting in Abuja where he also announced the increase in interest rate by one percentage point to 17.5 percent.
