The Central Bank of Nigeria, on Tuesday, said it has uncovered N4 million of new naira notes mismanaged by a commercial bank in Ogun State. It also accused commercial banks of sabotaging the efforts of the CBN in making the new naira notes available.

The Deputy Director, Banking Supervision Department, CBN Lagos, Kayode Makinde, disclosed this to newsmen on Tuesday while leading a team on the monitoring exercise in Ogun.

Makinde said this week would be the third week of the monitoring exercise in the state in an effort to ensure compliance to the directives of the CBN as regards issuance of new notes.

He said that the CBN should not be blamed for scarcity of new naira notes but the commercial banks. He disclosed that the team uncovered that a commercial bank mismanaged new naira notes given to it, adding that the bank involved and its officials will be sanctioned appropriately.

He said that this was the third week of ensuring strict implementation of our directive as regards issuance of new notes. They have banks, agents and super agents circulate new notes in the economy. The experience has been mixed, they saw some trying to hoard new notes, they compelled them to upload into ATM terminals, others had poor cash management.

Speaking further, Makinde said two teams were dispatched to cover two senatorial districts on each day of the monitoring exercise. He added that the use of super agents to swap old notes for new notes had been very effective in the state.