Nigeria is planning to establish mobile courts to jail currency hawkers
The Bankers' Committee said it will start educating the people on the right ways to handle the local currency.
Currency hawking is a booming black currency market in Africa's largest economy. It is done most especially during parties and at the roadside in some states.
The monetary authority, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and commercial banks made the resolutions at the end of the Bankers’ Committee, held in Lagos, on Thursday, October 4, 2018.
The Committee said it will start educating the people on the right ways to handle the local currency.
Isaac Okorafor, CBN’s director of corporate communications, said the apex bank will work on the provisions of the 2007 CBN Acts which provides punishments for those abusing the naira notes.
"The offender will receive a fine of N50,000, a six-month jail term or both.
“The central bank is collaborating with the Nigeria Police, Ministry of Justice and the judiciary and other relevant agencies, and we will insist that those who abuse the Naira is punished,” he said.
On the falling foreign reserves
The Committee stated noted that the rise of interest rates by the US Federal Reserves Bank has caused capital outflow from emerging markets and the slowdown in the economies of most emerging markets and thrown some into recession.
Ahmed Abdullahi, the CBN's Director of Banking Supervision, said the government is doing everything to reverse the slowdown in the nation’s economic growth.
On his part, Herbert Wigwe, the chief executive officer of Access Bank, said the committee has resolved to provide more support for agriculture and manufacturing in order to reduce forex allocation to some items.
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