Kabul residents concerned by delayed release of Worn-Out Banknotes

KABUL (TOLONews): The residents of Kabul expressed concerns over the existence of worn-out banknotes in the markets, saying that the new printed banknotes—that recently arrived in the country—are being distributed to the government employees and that the common people do not have access to it.
Last month, the Central Bank announced that the process of distributing 100 million new banknotes to the country’s commercial banks has begun.
The Central Bank said in a statement that the first tranche of 100 million new banknotes–with denominations of 10, 20, 50 and 100–were distributed to banks, and worn-out banknotes were collected. The Central Bank urged the citizens to make a greater effort to preserve the banknotes.
“When we go to the banks, they do not give us the new banknotes, saying that the new banknotes are only dedicated to the government employees and are not for the common people, we call on the government to distribute these banknotes to the people, so both the common people and government employees can use it,” said Ashqullah, a resident of Kabul.
“I withdrew money from the bank yesterday. The banknotes were worn-out, when I asked for new banknotes, they said there are problems now, when the problems are over, we will distribute new banknotes,” said Ghulam Faroq, a resident of Kabul.
“When I received my salary, half of it was new banknotes and half of it was worn-out. I am ok with it,” said Javid, a traffic police officer.
The residents expressed concerns, saying that they are faced with severe challenges in their daily business. “We don’t have the new banknotes, our banknotes are worn-out. Many of them are invalid,” said Abdul Karim, a resident of Kabul. “The banknotes are severely worn-out. Many of them are invalid. We don’t even know if there are new banknotes,” said Murad, a resident of Kabul.
This comes as the union of Money Exchangers of Sarai Shahzada said that the newly printed banknotes with denominations of 10, 20, 50 and 100 can solve the problems of the worn-out banknotes in the market. “There are large number denominations in the market and they are worn-out. I call on the Islamic Emirate and Da Afghanistan Bank to pay serious attention to this issue, so that the 500 and 1,000 denomination bills be injected into circulation,” said Abdul Rahman Zirak, a spokesman for the Sarai Shahzada Money Exchanger. In November, a member of the Afghan Central Bank’s supreme council, Shah Mehrabi, said that a contract was signed with Oberthur Fiduciarie for 390 million Afghani banknotes with a total face value of approximately 10 billion Afs, has been signed. Previously, Mehrabi had said that two batches of Afghani banknotes printed by the PWPW had arrived in Kabul.