The Central Bank of Kenya will be replacing the old and tattered 50 shilling notes by a batch of new notes according to Governor Patrick Njoroge.
There has been a shortage of 50 shilling notes lately and Kenyans had taken to the use of coins as a remedy with the CBK Governor saying that the shortage will be addressed soon.
The shortage according to the CBK has been brought about by the defacing and mishandling of both the banknotes and coins but added that “we will be releasing another set of notes from our stock.”
In the CBK’s regulations, a person found mishandling banknotes or coins can be jailed for up to three years or be forced to pay a fine of 500,000 shillings.
New Generational Notes
The Kenyan constitution stipulates that the new currency should not bear the image of the President as it is the case at the moment. The CBK was to release the new set of notes but has since failed due to a lawsuit filed against De La Rue, a company that had won the tender of printing the notes.
According to Dr. Njoroge, the lawsuit has delayed the printing of the new notes but added that “we would have had the new banknotes to replace the dirty one but we have a legal issue. We will have the clean one once this matter is settled.