CBN Spends Big on Naira Redesign – N74 Billion

Central Bank of Nigeria Spends Big on Naira Redesign

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has told the public how much it paid to make the new design for their money, called the naira. They spent over N74 billion. They did this at a time when the naira is getting close to being N700 for one US dollar.

More Money Spent in 2022

The Central Bank and a company that is part of it spent N74.84 billion in 2022 to make new money. This includes the new naira notes which have caused some talk. This is a lot more money than the year before. In fact, they spent 40.42% more in 2022 than in 2021 when they spent N53.39 billion.

Cash is Hard to Find

Even though they made new money, there was still a money shortage in Nigeria. This happened at the end of 2022 and the start of 2023.

Details about the Money

The bank gave more details in their official report. They said that N29.65 billion was spent on things related to making the money in 2022. This is a big increase, almost 95%, from the N15.23 billion in 2021. This money was used for things like printing, moving, and getting rid of old money.

Another part of the bank, the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Plc, spent N45.19 billion in 2022. This is an increase of 18.72% from the N38.07 billion in 2021. They spent this money on things like materials, paying workers, electricity, fixing machines, and more.

In 2022, there was about N3.01 trillion in money being used by people. This was a drop of 9.47% from the N3.32 trillion in 2021. In 2020, they had spent N58.62 billion to make money. This was a decrease of 28.83% from the N75.52 billion in 2019.

Naira Gets Stronger

On Friday, August 18, 2023, the value of the naira went up when compared to the US dollar. At first, one US dollar was worth N761.82 naira. But by the end of the day, it was worth N739 naira. This happened after the Central Bank made a rule about how much money-changers can charge.

New Rules

The Central Bank has set new rules about buying and selling foreign money. These rules were made official on Friday, August 18, 2023. They say that money-changers can’t charge more than 2.5% above or below a set rate.

List of Approved Money-Changers

The Central Bank also made a list of approved money-changers in Nigeria. This list tells which money-changers are allowed to buy and sell US dollars and other foreign money in Nigeria.