RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Do­na­tions on Old Years night are usu­al­ly giv­en from the heart with no stip­u­la­tions but this year with the de­mon­e­ti­za­tion of the cur­rent $100 bill, var­i­ous re­li­gious de­nom­i­na­tions are al­ready re­ject­ing what is still le­gal ten­der.

Some re­li­gious bod­ies are al­ready warn­ing their mem­bers not to get rid of their old bills by putting it in the do­na­tion box­es and col­lec­tion bas­kets on New Year’s Eve.

Ro­man Catholic parish­es have been in­form­ing their con­gre­ga­tions about putting the old $100 notes in­to col­lec­tion bas­kets at year-end Mass­es. In a De­cem­ber 13 memo, Fi­nan­cial Ad­min­is­tra­tor at the Chancery, De­siree Do­rant, told parish priests, mod­er­a­tors, fi­nance of­fi­cers, and Fi­nance Com­mit­tee mem­bers that the Arch­dio­cese will not be able to ac­com­mo­date the old $100 due to strict guide­lines from its bankers, Re­pub­lic Bank Lim­it­ed.

“The Arch­dio­cese is try­ing to ad­here to the De­cem­ber 31 dead­line for ex­change of ‘old’ mon­ey for the new notes. While parish­es should min­imise the hold­ing of cash, those with mon­ey to ex­change should do so as soon as pos­si­ble. De­posits can be done via night safe de­posits or walk-in de­posits to the bank by the last work­ing day of the year, De­cem­ber 31. Old $100 notes which are re­ceived at year-end Mass­es are to be de­posit­ed no lat­er than Jan­u­ary 1, 2020, via the night safe de­posit,” said a re­port in last week­end’s Catholic News.

A ‘no cash’ pol­i­cy was adopt­ed at the Chancery of­fices so parish­es were ad­vised not to send cash for ex­change. Parish­es are not al­lowed to fa­cil­i­tate cash ex­change for in­di­vid­u­als or or­gan­i­sa­tions. On­ly funds gen­er­at­ed through Parish ac­tiv­i­ties are to be ex­changed, the re­port stat­ed

Mod­er­a­tor of the Pres­by­ter­ian Church, Rev Joy-Ab­dul-Mo­han, said the gen­er­al sec­re­tary Ter­rence Warde and gen­er­al trea­sur­er Leslie Naipaul is­sued a state­ment this week that all monies col­lect­ed over the next two weeks must be de­posit­ed be­fore De­cem­ber 31.

“All of­fer­ings to be re­ceived at New Year’s Eve ser­vices must not in­clude the old TT$100 bill un­less an ex­ten­sion is oth­er­wise in­di­cat­ed by the gov­ern­ment. All pet­ty cash funds must not in­clude the old TT$100 Bill,” the state­ment said.

For­mer chair­man of the Fun­da­men­tal Bap­tist Mis­sion of  T&T Her­man Pe­dro, who is the trea­sur­er of his church, an­nounced on Sun­day that the church will no longer be ac­cept­ing the old bills from next week.

“We think from De­cem­ber 22 we will not ac­cept the old mon­ey. This will be the last week­end we are ac­cept­ing it in our church,” Pe­dro said.

He called on the gov­ern­ment to ex­tend the time for the ex­change of the bills.

The Fun­da­men­tal Bap­tist Mis­sion is re­spon­si­ble for more than 20 church­es in T&T.

Spir­i­tu­al Head of the SWA­HA Pun­dit Hard­eo Per­sad said the or­gan­i­sa­tion had not giv­en any stip­u­la­tions about the bill as do­na­tions are vol­un­tary and it would be in­ap­pro­pri­ate to tell peo­ple what they should give.

“I would hope that when they make a do­na­tion it will be giv­en from their heart. They know it will be prob­lems for us if they do­nate old bills on Old Year’s night. What­ev­er is giv­en we will re­ceive it on De­cem­ber 31, even if it is old bills,” Per­sad said.

First Vice Pres­i­dent of the An­ju­man Sun­nat ul Jam­mat As­so­ci­a­tion (AS­JA) Zain­ool Sarafat said his or­gan­i­sa­tion will not be ac­cept­ing the old bill on New Year’s Eve.

AS­JA has more 80 masjids across the coun­try and Sarafat said many Mus­lims are fac­ing prob­lems with the de­mon­e­ti­za­tion, es­pe­cial­ly those who are mak­ing the jour­ney to Haj.

 “De­cem­ber 31  is the last day for the mon­ey to be le­gal ten­der. To change it in the night will be dif­fi­cult so we are go­ing to ac­cept up un­til De­cem­ber 30. I think the gov­ern­ment should ex­tend it for every­one, not on­ly Mus­lims,” he said.