Give us more time to retire Sh1,000

There was a simpler, layperson-friendly way of selling 'demonetisation'. There were always three distinct publics that needed to understand and buy-in the Central Bank monetary policy.

If some publics did not get the message in the right way, at the right time, through the right media, it is because the communication did not consider their situation. This lot is stuck in the past, with money they cannot use. The forgotten public is pleading for more time to exchange the retired notes.  

There was always a way of avoiding the trap the Central Bank laid out for money launderers, tax evaders, fraudsters, and beneficiaries of proceeds of impunity. Some of these people prefer their take in cash, without paper trail.

But these holders of illicit money, as usual, knew their way around the bait. Sneaky pillow bankers got the message fast. They may have reacted snakily, the best way they know. They liked the four long months they had to retire bundles of their precious booty.

Hiring lots of trusted people, say 15 at ago, to exchange the money in Forex Bureaus was a discrete possibility. The 15 contract employees would probably go to different foreign exchange bureaus, without visiting any no more than twice, over a time.

A month or so on the beat was all they needed to convert the pieces of the Sh1,000 note into US dollars or Euros. They would have their money in stable currencies, sooner than the Central Bank deadline. They were probably smarter than the system.

For the stranded middle class, the transition was natural. They did not notice the flight of time for the old currency. Since the salaried citizens have no money to keep under their pillows, leave alone in drawers, they had nothing to hide. They hardly have enough of those high denomination notes to hoard. Money comes their way and goes out – naturally – fast, like handing over a relay baton.

But more than four months after the policy was first published, and a week after it took effect, some explanations still do not add up. Where are the unaccounted for billions —about Sh10 billion the Central Bank tells us?

If 217,000,000 pieces of the old currency, the princely Sh1,000 was in circulation, how come there were no stampedes around banks, of people retiring the denomination?

There was no panic. There was no rush. There was no anxiety, even as the deadline closed. Have Kenyans become diligent respecters of some deadlines they don't panic?

Kenyans have always been last-minute actors, especially where money is not involved. The registration for Huduma Namba, earlier in the year, was extended to give last-minute people more time for enlistment.

The August national census had to be staggered over a week to have Kenyans enumerated. General elections have always seen last-minute rushes for voter registration, even though the process is continuous.  

People always avoid non-existent queues only to join winding ones as polling stations draw to a close. People always expect extension of voting time.

But did wandering pastoralists – the third public – get the message? Did they understand the urgency and rationale of the message?

Returning herders confirm they didn't understand the message from the other Kenya. There is a report of a constituency of Kenyans who missed the deadline. This public is pleading with the Governor of the Central Bank to give them more time to retire their bundles of Sh1,000.

Four days after the demonitisation deadline of September 30, newspapers and online sources reported about 2,000 pastoralists were still stuck with bundles of the retired note. The wanderers also report crooked traders were still buying livestock by the lorries in the wild, using the retired currency note, even at the zero-hour.

The news of the pending retirement came on June 1, on Madaraka Day, from Narok. Then, wandering pastoralists were four months out of news. They had wandered to remote parts of Tana River and Lamu counties to find pasture for their livestock.

They got to know about the retirement of the old note, as they returned from the other Kenya. Their preoccupation there was finding pasture for their livestock. Out-of-earshot in remote Witu and Boni areas of the Coast, they could not return in time to retire their notes.

On returning to the information-rich Kenya, the wanderers realised their Sh1,000 was no longer legal tender. They could not use the 'former money' to buy services on their way back to Kenya.

There is also another group that did not turn in their bundles of the old notes. This imaginary group may explain why some of the currency notes were not surrendered. They could be convicted fraudsters, bank robbers and money launderers.

Some may have chosen to serve a jail term, hoping to spend the gold on being released. Some may still be in Kamiti, Manyani or Naivasha Maximum Prison. They will probably come out to find their hidden booty worthless. They will have made a flight from the fire into the frying pan.