The Central Bank of Nigeria has said it will start printing the naira in paper notes in 2014. It signed a deal in 2006 with Australia’s Securency International to print lower more-circulated units of the naira in polymer, while higher denominations were kept in paper form. But six years after and following allegations that the manufacturer had bribed foreign officials to secure contracts, including in Nigeria, the CBN said it was being forced to reverse the policy. A report by AFP on Tuesday quoted the spokesman for the CBN, Mr. Ugochukwu Okoroafor, as saying, “Polymer has been on a test run since 2007.
This explains why we did not go the whole hog by printing all the notes in polymer. “We only used polymer for N5, N10, N20 and N50, while N100, N200, N500 and N1,000 are in paper form. We soon discovered that the [polymer] notes easily fade out because of our peculiar hot climate in Nigeria… making them look tattered when in use over time.” Earlier experiments indicated that the polymer-based notes, which are in use in 23 countries around the world, including Australia, could last longer than traditional cotton-paper notes. But the CBN said there had been a public outcry about the poorer quality of some of the new currency in circulation. Securency International was reported to have supplied 1.9 billion of its guardian brand polymer-based notes to Nigeria between 2006 and 2008. I dont know if this's a sign of progression or regression.
Punch Nigeria.
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