BLANTYRE (MaraviPost)—The Reserve Bank of Malawi (RBM) has issued a special Golden Jubilee K1000 banknote to add colour to the commemoration of the country’s 50 years of independence on July 6.
Malawi attained independence from colonial masters, Britain in July 1964, and government has lined up a service of worship and commemorating various activities to take place at Civo stadium in Lilongwe.
The central bank also announced that it will from August this year release new Malawi Kwacha banknotes with new blind recognition features.
RBM has changed the blind recognition features following requests mainly from the Malawi Union of the Blind (MUB) and the Federation of Disability Organisations in Malawi (Fedoma) on the need to change the blind recognition features on the current notes which were released in 2012.
The banknotes in question are K20, K50, K100, K500 and K1000 and will now have “enhanced blind recognition features,” according RBM Governor Charles Chuka.
In addition, the colour of the K50 bank note has been changed to light green from light blue to differentiate it from the K200 note.
However, the Golden Jubilee commemorative K1000 note will be issued this July.
“To commemorate the country’s 50 years of independence, the Bank wishes to advise the general public that a special commemorative K1000 banknote will be issued in July 2014. The commemorative banknote is a limited edition and will circulate side by side with the current K1000 banknote,” said Chuka.
He further stressed that K1000 banknote and the banknotes with the enhanced blind features are legal tender currency and will circulate concurrently with existing banknotes until the latter are automatically phased out.
The commemorative K1000 banknote will have “50 Years of Independence” written on the right hand bottom corner.
In terms of the new blind recognition features, K20 will have one large dot, K50 two large dots, K100 three large dots, K500 a square, while the regular K1000 note will now have four large dots, so too the commemorative banknote.
