Ksh7.3 Billion Becomes Worthless Paper As Old Ksh1000 Currency Notes Are Phased Out

The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) has declared the old Ksh1000 currency notes worthless, which sees at least Ksh7.38 billion in possession of the public go to waste.

In total, the CBK says that Kenyans returned at least Ksh209.6 billion during the four-month phase-out of old Ksh1,000 notes, which now become illicit.

“The value of money that did not come back is equivalent to the value lost during the Goldenberg case,” he said CBK governor Dr Patrick Njoroge.

During the demonetisation, a total of 3,172 suspicious transactions were flagged and are now under investigations by crime busters.

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“Time is up! September 30, 2019, has come and gone. Bye bye and goodnight! That’s it,” Dr Njoroge said in a tweet at midnight on Monday night.

During the period, CBK did 15 targeted inspections on banks that it suspected of not strictly following its stringent anti-money laundering procedures.

Dr Njoroge rubbished claims from critics that the demonetisation exercise did not go as planned saying:

“There was no impact on inflation. There was no queue of buyers of high-value assets to launder money – AML/ CFT measures were applied on the forex market, thus no impact on the exchange rate and there were few queues at banks.”

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