Dirty currency notes are not good for a visitor to the country – Letter
View(s):There is news that the Central Bank (CB) is presently engaged in a restructuring exercise of its operations. May I suggest that they consider including an officer or a division to monitor and ensure the quality of currency notes in circulation. Very often we come across dirty disfigured, torn, burnt and unserviceable currency notes. A person visiting Singapore will observe that currency notes in circulation are almost new and crispy. It reflects the image of the country. The CB should enlist the co-operation of commercial banks to weed out unserviceable currency notes from circulation. Years ago banks employed sorters whose job was to sort unserviceable notes and send them over to the CB for destruction.
A few years back the CB directed the commercial banks to employ compliance officers to ensure that all government and CB regulations are complied with. May I suggest that if they don’t have one, to make provision to appoint a compliance officer so that they could avoid episodes like purchasing Greek Bonds, bonds issued by a country fast moving towards bankruptcy, recent Rs.10 billion bond issue and issuance of a Rs.1000 currency note depicting foreign soldiers hoisting our national flag denoting victory of security forces at Thoppigala.
A.G. Weerasinghe
Gangodawila