Central Bank of Kenya should not feel restrained to tell Kenyans how it plans to launch new currency notes and coins to comply with the Constitution’s deadline of February 2015.

Article 231 (4) of the Constitution requires that all ccnotes and coins bear images that depict Kenya, but exclude portraits of individuals. The new currency will incorporate the country’s national symbols, heritage and culture.

It is not clear how CBK will release the new notes and coins in the same year the EAC partner states are expected to set up a monetary union. The union will see issuance of new notes and coins in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi.

It is interesting that despite the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the last Parliament raising questions about what they considered an assault on the independence of CBK the disclosure that the Cabinet had approved the printing of the new currency came from the Cabinet Secretary and not CBK or the National Treasury.

But the important thing is for CBK to be alive to the issues the PAC raised last year, and ensure the contract to print the new currency is given out in a manner that gets the country the best value for money.

Without exception

This will only happen if the entire process is done through an open tender, administered in a transparent and accountable manner from start to finish without exceptions.

The PAC last year recommended that the joint venture, through which the government acquired 40 per cent of De La Rue, continue subject to the fulfillment of some conditions and must not tie CBK to signing a ten-year currency exclusive printing contract with the British subsidiary company based in Ruaraka, Nairobi. That had been one of De La Rue’s demands for the joint venture  which was estimated to cost the government Sh655 million.

Such a clause, the MPs’ report rightly pointed out, would be in contravention of government procurement regulations and procedures and cannot guarantee the bank a fair market price for currency printing.

The report had also delved into capacity, machines and technology in use at De La Rue’s Ruaraka plant and concluded that it lacks the capacity to effectively and efficiently print huge volumes of bank notes with enhanced security features.

It is not clear whether the company has increased its capacity since then to enable it to be considered when the volume of currency to be printed can be expected to be higher than when it was given a contract for printing 1.71 billion pieces of bank notes, which it would have printed in Malta. The new notes are expected to have increased security to ensure that CBK would be several steps ahead of counterfeiters.

It is also not too early for CBK to begin educating Kenyans on how to behave when the Sh10 coins are taken out of circulation and replaced by notes, as currently coins are stored at home, in car or office drawers.

Phasing out the old notes and printing new ones is expected to cost the economy billions of shillings and was supposed to be spread between 2014 and 2015. Available statistics put the average cost of printing Kenyan bank notes  at Sh3,721 per 1,000 pieces.

Given the fact that 390 million bank notes are printed every year, the need for a high level of vigilance cannot be overstated.