MONROVIA, June 22 (LINA)- The Plenary of the House of Representatives has mandated its Committee on Banking and Currency to investigate the Central Bank of Liberia (CBL) over allegations of coins not being minted and smaller banknotes denominations not printed before the bigger bills.
The House’s decision followed a communication from Montserrado County District #11 Representative, Richard Nagbe Koon, seeking the indulgence of the House to invite the Executive Governor of the CBL and his technical team to explain why coins are not being minted and smaller denominations not printed before the bigger bills.
In his communication to the plenary on Tuesday, Rep. Koon said “it is sad and embarrassing” that the general citizenry goes through turbulent times and often gets frustrated when transacting with cash on the Liberian market, due to the shortage of smaller denominations of the Liberian banknote.
According to him, on many occasions, either buyer or seller will unsatisfactorily leave petit cash with the other party during transactions which, he said, “is bad and uncivilized.”
It can be recalled, the House of Representatives approved the CBL’s request to print a new family of banknotes in the tone of L$48.7 billion to completely replace the ones that are currently in use.
In the legislative piece named and style ‘Resolution 001-2021’, the House mandated the CBL to print 20, 50, 100 and 500 denominations, omitting the L$5 and L$10 banknotes.
Following the reading of the communication and subsequent debate by members of the House of Representatives, the plenary unanimously voted to forward the communication to the committee on Banking and Currency to conduct an investigation with authorities of the CBL and report to plenary within two weeks.
