The Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, on Tuesday disclosed that it is ready to help the Gambia’s apex bank to mint its legal tender.

This was revealed by Emefiele during a two-day visit by a delegation from the Central Bank of Gambia, led by its governor, Buah Saidy, in Abuja.

The PUNCH reported that in addition to a prior request by the CBG for a possible partnership to tackle acute currency shortages among other currency management challenges in the country lamented that the Gambia spends £70,000 to lift printed currencies from Sri Lanka.

Speaking further, Saidy revealed that its current printer, De La Rue of London, was expensive and unsustainable.

Reacting to the report, Emefiele said, “I note your point on currency management. The Nigerian mint was set up in the early 1960s and we’ve been producing our currency since the early 60s and we have a lot of idle capacity to ensure that instead of you going to Europe or other countries, you will be able to benefit from our ideas.

“Our colleagues will take you to the security printing facility. Our colleagues that came in from Liberia two months ago were fascinated by the kind of facilities we have at our Nigerian security printing and minting facility and I am sure that you will also enjoy them.
“And I am sure they will follow you back to the Gambia to see how they can help you to structure your economic order quantities so we can also be of assistance in printing your currency.

“And I can assure you that we can be extremely competitive if only from the standpoint of logistics and freight from Europe but it’s just going to be a few hours from here to the Gambia and the rest of them.”

The CBG Governor also noted that one of the purposes of the visit was to benefit from the CBN’s vast experiences on how it had successfully regulated the financial system and seek assistance in the areas of information technology, modernisation, cybersecurity, forex shipping and management, among others.

Emefiele. in response, attributed the successes to the support which the apex bank had enjoyed from the National Assembly.