The Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation has accused the Central Bank of Nigeria, under the leadership of the former Governor, Godwin Emefiele, of re-circulating dirty and unfit banknotes valued at N29.77bn in violation of the apex bank’s own Clean Note Policy.
The allegation is contained in the newly released Auditor-General’s Annual Report on Non-Compliance and Internal Control Weaknesses in MDAs for the year ended December 31, 2022, which detailed how several CBN branches issued out banknotes already classified as “Counted Audited Dirty”, a category of notes formally processed and certified as unfit for circulation.
According to the audit report, the CBN released the condemned notes across Abuja, Lagos, Bauchi and Jos branches between April and December 2022. The Abuja branch accounted for the bulk of the re-issued notes, with N28.615bn released between October and December 2022.
The Lagos branch issued N970m in December 2022, while Bauchi released N30m in April of the same year. The Jos branch issued N50m and N100m on May 16 and May 27, 2022, respectively.