Government is still sticking to the December 31 deadline.
Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley the $100 note changeover is being monitored and if the administration sees no need for an adjustment of the deadline, he’s advising people to try and observe it. He gave this response at yesterday’s Whitehall post-cabinet media briefing when asked about the flexibility of the changeover deadline.
Rowley acknowledged that it was “quite a large exercise”.
He added: “But we have reason to believe that things have gone well. As chairman of the National Security Council, I want to tell Trinidad and Tobago we apologise to those who were particularly disrupted by this but there are significant benefits to be had from this exercise.”
He said he trusted that as “we go forward” Government will ensure benefits are had from the assignment. He said the changeover will be over in a couple of weeks and business will return to normal.
As a security response plan, Rowley said there had been a need for secrecy and if the changeover wasn’t on a need-to-know basis, it wouldn’t have been doable and the exercise’s benefits would have been lost.
“Given the complexity of the exercise, we’re quite satisfied by and large we’ve done very well,” he said.
Rowley said the situation was going “relatively smoothly”. He said he wasn’t surprised by the initial rush and had noted complaints that it had been done at the wrong time and that the “old” bills wouldn’t be accepted.
“We’ll monitor this and determine how firm that wall is on December 31,” he said.
Responding to complaints from Tobago, he said the Central Bank, which can redeem notes, has a provision for those unable to go to banks to change notes. He said there’s adequate provision of new bills at banks but one of the biggest problems encountered was that some people had issues with declaring their source of funds.
Rowley said the polymer note is a superior product compared to the paper note and will be more difficult to copy.
“But we can’t say it will never be counterfeited,” he said.
