Welcome To The Mountain Kingdom

+266 8001 0100

PROGRESS MADE ON BLEACHED SA CURRENCY-DR MATLANYANE

The Minister of Finance and Development Planning, Dr Retšelisitsoe Matlanyane says progress has been made on cleansing up the bleached South African currency in the country.

Briefing members of the National Assembly in the speech she made on Wednesday, the Minister said the Central Bank of Lesotho (CBL) has met with its South African Reserve Bank (SARB) counterpart and Common Monitory Association (CMA) central banks in February this year.

She highlighted the meeting agreed that South Africa will launch a new family of Bank notes with new features that will be in circulation by May 03rd this year.

The Minister further noted that the notes will be in circulation in Lesotho by the latest June this year.

“They will immediately be circulated in high volumes in the country to rid of the bleached currency,” she said.

Dr Matlanyane said in the process, the bleached notes will continue being collected and remitted to the CLB for final dispatch to SARB to be confiscated.

Again, the Minister noted that SARB and CBL will continue to engage in Research and Development, identify the substance used for cleaning spilt ink used in Auto Teller Machines (ATM) as a security measure and will advise on new improved substances for future security.

She added that several public awareness campaigns have been undertaken using various media platforms including National Broadcasting, Radio stations, social media and physical meetings with various groups in society including businesses and ordinary citizens.

The Minister said training sessions on the use of Ultraviolet (UV) light which helps identify bleached notes were made.

She said staff from the businesses and institutions that benefited from these training sessions include Standard Lesotho Bank, Lesotho Postbank, Pick n Pay, Woolworth, Game, Vodacom, Metropolitan, Lesotho Highlands Development Authority (LHDA), Shoprite/Usave, Gain and Tšepo.

In around November last year, notice was made on the circulation of bleached South African Rand notes in Lesotho jurisdiction.

Immediately after this notice, the financial sector was made aware, in particular the baking sector, and other financial intermediaries.

Since the bleached currency loses the properties and features of money, it becomes worthless and can no longer be acceptable in exchange for goods and services as a medium of exchange, the CBL had to quickly devise intervention strategies by which such currency could be removed from circulation.

So far about R400 000 worth of bleached South Africa notes have been collected at the Central Bank of Lesotho and the cleaning campaign continues.

Source: LENA 27/04/2023

 

Share:

Recent Posts

Follow Us