By Our Correspondent

Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE)-The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has concluded plans to replace the polymer notes of N5.00, N10.00, N20.00 and N50.00 to paper notes reports our Correspondent monitoring the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank Spring Meeting in Washinghtion, United States.

Tunde Lemo, Deputy Governor, Operations of the CBN disclosed this to representatives of Nigerian Media at the Spring Meeting of the IMF and World Bank.

Lemo said the reason for this is that the notes fade quickly. “By the middle of the year, we will start to produce the second generation of lower denomination notes, now in paper not in polymer” he said.

“My plea is that Nigerians should exercise patience with us; it wasn’t the fault of the CBN, it was just because we had to go back to the drawing board to rethink `Project Cure’ in the light of the wish of the public that we should not go ahead with the N5000 notes and lower denomination.

According to him, the CBN will correct this in the course of the year and the polymer will be phased out. “In fact, we are phasing out polymer.  No new note is being printed in polymer now’’ he said.

Lemo affirmed that the CBN had awarded a contract for the printing of the higher denomination notes to a foreign company because of low capacity at the Nigerian Printing and Minting Company and the CBN would begin to receive the new notes from June 2013.

Lemo said the campaign on the careful handling of the naira, was not successful, “it’s a criminal act to abuse the naira according to the CBN Act.

“Unfortunately, CBN is not a law enforcement institution; we left that in the hands of the law enforcement institutions and that has not kicked in,” he said. “I still go to parties and see people spraying money, stepping on money, I see touts distributing mint-fresh money that should go to customers’’ Lemo said.