The Cen­tral Bank has heed­ed the call of To­ba­go res­i­dents and tourists and will re­turn to the is­land on Jan­u­ary 14 and 17 from 9 am to 2:30 pm to col­lect ap­pli­ca­tions for the re­demp­tion of the $100 cot­ton bills to poly­mer notes.

This move came af­ter they be­sieged the bank to con­tin­ue its ser­vices in To­ba­go, at least un­til the end of March.

The bank had vis­it­ed To­ba­go for sev­en days in De­cem­ber to fa­cil­i­tate the ex­change of the notes. How­ev­er, it con­tin­ues to ex­change in Trinidad un­til March 31, 2020.

Di­ane Hadad, chair­man of the To­ba­go Di­vi­sion of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, said the cham­ber had "sev­er­al re­ports" about the sit­u­a­tion. She said the same ser­vices of­fered in Trinidad should be avail­able in To­ba­go.

"We made notes that there would be an of­fice in To­ba­go, and the an­nounce­ment was clear that there will be an of­fice in the Unit Trust build­ing by the Cen­tral Bank for the three months.

"How­ev­er, we now un­der­stand that when peo­ple go to the Unit Trust build­ing, they are be­ing told that they have to go to Trinidad."

Hadad said the cham­ber was told, "the bank did not have enough ac­tiv­i­ty to war­rant hav­ing per­sons at the Unit Trust rep­re­sent­ing Cen­tral Bank."

She said the sit­u­a­tion "is an­oth­er over­sight, ne­glect" for To­bag­o­ni­ans.

"It does not au­gur well for tourists."

Mean­while, tourists vis­it­ing To­ba­go took to the To­ba­go Tourism Agency Ltd's Face­book page to ex­press their con­cerns re­cent­ly.

One for­eign tourist said she had just ex­changed some pounds for TT dol­lars.

"I have been giv­en the old notes which will not be le­gal when I ar­rive, what can I do?"

An­oth­er said she had $400 and will not ar­rive in To­ba­go un­til Feb­ru­ary 5, 2020. "I on­ly got the old notes a cou­ple of weeks ago—try­ing to be or­gan­ised be­fore Christ­mas."

An­oth­er asked if To­ba­go's vis­i­tors will have to trav­el to Trinidad be­fore vis­it­ing To­ba­go.

The agency re­spond­ed to one for­eign­er in­di­cat­ing that it would speak with her "pri­vate­ly" on the mat­ter.

Mean­while, the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) has al­so voiced con­cerns on the mat­ter

"The de­mon­eti­sa­tion of the old $100 bills was done with­out the needs of To­ba­go in mind," deputy leader of the PDP Dr Faith B Yis­rael told Guardian Me­dia.

"The av­er­age To­bag­on­ian is again dis­ad­van­taged by this over," she added.

In re­sponse to Guardian Me­dia's query on the sit­u­a­tion, the bank's Ex­ter­nal Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer Skye Her­nan­dez said the in­sti­tu­tion had dis­cussed re­turn­ing to To­ba­go.

In a news re­lease, she said the bank con­tin­ues re­view­ing the sit­u­a­tion and will keep the pub­lic in­formed of any fur­ther arrange­ments.