AS of April 2, 2020, our cotton $100 notes completely lost their status as legal tender. These were replaced with polymer $100 notes which became legal tender as of December 9, 2019. Passionate pleas from citizens to extend the deadline for exchange of the old cotton $100 notes have completely fallen on deaf ears.
This is so, despite the startling revelation in the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago (CBTT) Monetary Policy Report of May 2020 that $476 million or 5.8% of the value of old cotton $100 notes in circulation were missing.
This tally of “missing money” came after the CBTT gave a grace period of three months after December 31, 2019, to facilitate the exchange of the paper notes for the new polymer notes. To qualify for exchange during the grace period, the CBTT had to be satisfied that the failure to present the notes for redemption prior to December 31, 2019, resulted from circumstances beyond the control of the true owner of the notes, or that there was some other good or sufficient reason for the failure to present the notes e.g. not being physically in the country during the period December 9 to 31, 2019.
CBTT Governor Alvin Hilaire, is reported in the media, to have said that not all the “missing money” would be illegal gains as some persons were not able to meet the deadlines for redemption and while some cash was being held as evidence in legal proceedings.
To date, many persons have approached me for advice on the possibility of exchanging $100 cotton notes still in their possession for various, understandable reasons e.g. they were out of the country until now; they were cleaning up and found the notes in unlikely places or they had hidden but forgotten the notes in their house etc. But there are absolutely no options right now for exchange.
Even the Bank of England (the UK’S central bank) which is transitioning its cotton notes to polymer notes with a deadline for exchange of September 30, 2022, stated that it will: “… honour the stated face value of its paper notes for all time”. This means persons holding cotton notes can exchange them at the Bank of England at any time, even though they will cease to become legal tender as of September 30th 2022.
Having admitted since May 2020 that a significant amount of persons who legally acquired the money just couldn’t make the deadline for exchange, why then is the Government of Trinidad and Tobago not (at minimum) permitting a further reasonable extension of time using the same criteria as the previously given 3-month grace period? Particularly at a time when the cost of living is skyrocketing, isn’t this cruel? Be safe T&T.
Copyright © 2022 Neela Ramsundar, LL.B (HONS), L.E.C is a Civil Litigation Attorney at Law & Certified Mediator.
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So the past 3 month extension from December 31st took us down to March 31st 2020.
There is no mention of COVID-19 and the world wide pandemic as one reason people were not able to make that new March 2020 deadline.
Didn’t the the lockdown and shut down begin in March 2020 when people were asked to hide away in their homes and only come out for groceries and pharmacy?.. so we need to get those few days back. My two cents.