2017-02-18 Sat

People from Kabul, Afghanistan are complaining about circulating old banknotes that are used for daily transactions. These worn notes are of the denominations one, two, five, 10, 20, 50, 100, 500 and 1,000 afghanis. Many think that they are unusable and some of these notes are not even accepted by shopkeepers. Situations go out of control leading to fights and quarrels. There are reports that moneychangers bought worn banknotes at lower prices than their actual denomination.

Afghan bank officials agree that one to 50 afghanis have turned old, but they think that there is nothing to worry about. They have also asked people to take such notes to ADB for exchange. Bank officials have confirmed that 1 to 100 afghanis banknotes are adequately circulated. Frequent usage of banknotes is one of the reasons why they are getting worn out. They also warned that buying old banknotes at a lower price is a crime. Four to five billion old afghani bank notes are destroyed every year and 220 billion afghanis were available for transactions.