Ikpeazu deeply worried about effect of new cashless policy on traders in Abia

Abia State Commissioner for Trade and Investment, Chief John Okiyi Kalu says Governor Okezie Ikpeazu is deeply worried about the effect of the new cashless policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and redesigning of naira notes, on traders in the state.

Speaking to newsmen in his office in Umuahia, Chief Okiyi informed that the state government was looking at multiple ways to ease the negative effect of the policies on traders hence the announcement by the Governor that the Abia State Board of Internal Revenue Service should immediately suspend collection of 2023 revenue from all markets in the state till June 2023.

According to him, “the Governor has visited many markets in the state since the cashless policy came into effect along with the scarcity of new currency notes as a result of the naira redesign and observed that traders in the state are possibly the worst hit.

The Commissioner called on banks in the state to immediately deploy a sufficient number of POS machines to all markets, superstores, and other trading centres in the state to enable buyers to utilize their ATM cards for transactions.