From Andrew Ajijah, Jos
Operators of Point of Sale (POS) within Jos metropolis in Plateau State have increased charges for for their transactions from 100 to 200 Naira per 10,000 naira.
Investigations by The Voice on Thursday revealed that POS operators in some areas in the city charge N200 for withdrawing N10,000 redesigned notes, and accepting deposit for the new rates.
An operator using Access Bank POS along Ahmadu Bello-Way who begged not to be named said the increase was due to difficulties they encounter in accessing the new Naira notes from the banks.
According to our source, POS operators pay a token to officials of banks to be given the redesigned Naira notes.
Four other POS operators at Terminus Market in Jos, were also transacting in similar manner.
At the time of The Voice’s visit, six customers who came for withdrawals at the POS along Rwang-Pam Street but when told of the new rate, two of them refused to transact business with the said POS operator, due to the new charges of N200.
It was observed that residents who had huge cash at hand do not bother about the new charges; and were going about their businesses paying the new charges without complaints.
A visit to some commercial banks within the state capital by our correspondent further revealed that there were lot of customers struggling to deposit old currency into their bank accounts.
Similarly, citizens besieged various Automated Teller Machines (ATM) but noticed that most were empty and waited for possible restoration of services while some ATMs were dispensing both new and old Naira notes.
The Voice observed that petty business owners were rejecting the old Naira notes, claiming that they may not be able to deposit them in banks before the January 31 deadline given by the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN.
