Nairobi — There were no long queues in banking halls Monday, the last day for swapping the old Sh1,000 notes for the new currency, in what surprised many from Kenyans who are known for a last-minute rush on anything.
A spot check by Capital FM News at Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) branches in Nairobi, Standard Chartered, Equity and Commercial Bank of Africa (CBA) revealed that banks were running normal operations, with no extra-ordinary activities of Kenyans trying to beat the deadline of getting rid of the old-generation notes.
Maurice Omondi, a businessman in Nairobi said majority of Kenyans use MPESA to avoid handling cash "which is why they did not have money to return."
"I have been using MPESA and I know majority of Kenyans do the same so it was easy for me to return the few notes I had. I mostly prefer cashless transactions," he said.
Kevin Njoroge and Ben Kioko, both taxi drivers in Nairobi believe that some Kenyans used the money for investments to avoid being questioned about the source of their money in case they returned the old notes in huge amounts.
"The issue is not returning the money. Many people are fearing being asked where they got the money but if they were allowed to return even over a million notes without many questions, I am sure everyone would have returned those notes," Njoroge said.
Central Bank of Kenya Governor Patrick Njoroge has declared there will be no extension of the deadline that was set on June 1, when he unveiled a new set of all currency notes to replace the old ones.
But it is the Sh1000-note, the largest denomination that is being demonetized.
"There will be no extension at all," Njoroge declared recently, while urging kenyans to heed to the October 30 deadline.
CBK officials said Kenyans had only exchanged slightly more than half of the targetted 217 million pieces of Sh1000 old-generation notes that is in circulation.
Would people with huge hordes of cash have resigned to fate for fear of answering questions on the source of their illicit cash?That was the big question CBK officials were left wondering where the money could have gone.Most wholesale and retailers across the country started declining old notes a week to dealine, fearing they may be caught up with time for the exchange.Giant telecommunications company Safaricom and supermarkets like Naivas, Tuskys and Carrefour already stopped taking the old notes, days to the official […]
