The new polymer $100 banknotes have been printed and are ready for distribution, Finance Minister Colm Imbert has announced.
"The notes are more than adequate...ready for the changeover," Imbert said last Friday in the Lower House.
Imbert was concluding debate on proposed legislation to facilitate the transition from the current $100 bill to a replacement note which has special security features.
Government's Cabinet meeting last Thursday approved plans for a changeover to the new polymer bills. This involves redemption at banks of $100 bills designed in the "old" format.
Last Thursday National Security Minister Stuart Young said the replacement $100 note will aid the reduction of fraud and counterfeiting and will undermine the use of stored cash to fund criminal activity. He said culprits often operated with $100 notes.
The new bills also carry Braille features. He projected the polymer bills would be in circulation in two weeks including a period when both old and new would co-exist before redemption concludes.
Young revealed speedy moves to debate legislation for the changeover. This involved debate in both the Lower and Upper Houses of Parliament between Friday and yesterday.
Last Friday the bill was debated in the Lower House for almost three hours. It was passed—without amendments—just after 10 pm with unanimous support from both Government and Opposition MPs.
Presenting the bill were Imbert, Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi and Young. Opposition MPs David Lee and Ganga Singh replied. The bill was debated further in the Upper House yesterday.
Concluding Lower House debate last Friday, Imbert said the Government had learned from the mistakes of other countries which also did changeovers, some of whom did not have enough banknotes for their procedures.
"Those countries—such as Mauritius—didn't have enough, they had to print as they went along. But that inefficiency regarding new bank notes has been addressed here (in TT)," he said.
"The bank notes have been printed and are ready for distribution, more than adequate—they've been designed, printed and are ready for the changeover."
Imbert said that there are currently 80 million pieces of the 100 bills in circulation in T&T and the Government printed enough new notes to compensate for the upcoming changeover.
Immediately after the bill was passed in the Lower House last Friday night, a shipment of the new notes was transported yesterday to the Central Bank's location in Port-of-Spain. UK-based printers De La Rue handled the printing of the currency.
The notes were brought to the CBTT's Edward Street entrance via container, surrounded by extremely heavy security including army personnel on the ground and air guard escort overhead.
The Wrightson Road entrance to the city nearest to CBTT was cordoned off. Police also restricted access around Independence Square and surrounding areas. This caused extreme traffic gridlock along certain routes all morning.
The notes were brought in while the Upper House debate on the changeover was taking place, nearby.
Gov't flexible on cancellation, redemption dates
Concluding Lower House debate last Friday, Imbert spoke about safeguards to deal with legal challenges. He said Government has provided for the ability to extend the date of cancellation of notes and date of redemption, "We're moving on a timeline and we'll make our best efforts to meet that timeline. But if for some reason the date has to be extended, it will be. And I can assure you the plan is to achieve the objective within the special time frame, which will be known in due course—but not today."
Another safeguard to potential legal challenges is the ability for flexibility on redemption. Banks will redeem notes at face value within three months if the banks feel that the failure to present the notes before the appointed date resulted from circumstances beyond the control of the true owner. Or if there was some good/or sufficient reason for the failure, he added.
Imbert said, "We're not leaving it to chance: the banks with ministerial approval may prescribe conditions procedures as considered appropriate for the redemption of specified notes."
He reiterated as he had said in piloting the bill earlier in the sitting, that it was not possible at this time to indicate what the notice date will be (when Central Bank will say the changeover will begin) or what the appointed date will be (when bills are to be presented for redemption).
He also could not say at this point, what any new limits will be if there will be any.
Imbert said one way to hit drug traffickers "in their pockets," was to issue new bank notes. He acknowledged there were challenges to money changeover processes in India, but that did not succeed in courts there.
(see Page A9, A17)