The old Sh1,000 banknotes mopped up by Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) would fit in only five 40-ft containers, governor Dr Patrick Njoroge revealed on Wednesday.
Dr Njoroge said the 209,661,000 pieces collected in the demonetisation exercise will be turned into briquettes.
Briquettes are used as fuel products but the CBK governor did not reveal if they will sell them to the public.
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“If you put all the 217 million pieces of the KSh 1,000 notes, they would fit in only five 40-ft containers. When we receive banknotes, we punch them and shred them, then compact them into a briquette,” said Dr Njoroge.
The CBK governor said that 7,386,000 pieces of the old Sh 1,000 were not returned, an amount equivalent to Sh7.4 billion.
“Demonetisation has been successful because we have completed it smoothly, with AML/CFT filters firmly in place, and kept out money whose owners did not want to be subjected to the relevant checks in the system,” said Njoroge during a press briefing on Wednesday.
There were fears that the demonetisation drive may have an impact on inflation but Dr Njoroge said there was no effect on the exchange rate.
“There was no impact on inflation. There was no queue of buyers of high-value assets to launder money.AML/ CFT measures were applied on the forex market, thus no impact on the exchange rate. There were few queues at banks,” CBK said in a series of tweets.
