The Independent National Electoral Commission has assured that the current scarcity of the naira ravaging the economy won’t affect the forthcoming general elections.
The commission stated that not all the operations for the conduct of the February 25 and March 11 general elections required the use of physical cash, according to Leadership.
The chairman of the commission, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, allayed concerns on the current naira scarcity on Saturday in Abuja after a tour of the training centre for INEC ad-hoc staff or presiding officers, and inspection of facilities at the national collation centre at the International Conference Centre.
Yakubu had days ago led a delegation of management of the commission to the CBN headquarters, where the CBN governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele, assured the commission of the required cash for the election.
Yakubu said, “We visited the CBN last week on the issue of cash for payment of some of the services, not all, some of the services that we are going to engage on election day.
“The bulk of payment for goods and services is made through electronic transfer. But there are certain critical services that will be remunerated by cash; and that’s why we went to the CBN and it’s a small percentage of the budget
“The Central Bank has assured us that we will not suffer any encumbrances in that regard. So there are no issues with respect to that.”
The INEC boss declared that the commission was ready to conduct the Presidential and National Assembly elections on Saturday, February 25, 2023, where Nigerians will be voting in over 176,000 polling units.
He also confirmed that the elected candidate would be announced at the ICC in Abuja.
