GH¢2 note was meant to celebrate Kwame Nkrumah’s birthday and it has passed – Bank of Ghana

•The Bank of Ghana has announced plans to phase out the GH¢2 and GH¢1 notes from the economy

•The BoG says the notes are a difficult process hence the decision to take them off the market

•In the case of the GHC2 note, the BoG says they are commemorative note which has served its purpose

Dr Ernest Addision, the governor of the Bank of Ghana has said that another reason behind the decision by the central bank to phase out the GH¢2 note is because the note has served its purpose.

According to him, the notes were issued in remembrance of Kwame Nkrumah’s centenary birthday anniversary and with the event marked years ago, it is only right that the BoG stops its circulation.

"The one with President’s Nkrumah’s head on it. You will recall that the GH¢2 note was issued as a commemorative note. So commemorative notes are not notes that we will continue to print and therefore what we have done in the last two years is to introduce the GH¢2 coins, and you would expect that, eventually, it would more or less play the role that the GH¢2 note is playing,” he said.

He said this at a press conference on Monday, September 27, 2021.

He also highlighted the economic factors which influenced the decision to phase out the notes from the economy.

He added that the poor handling of the notes as well as the difficulty in processing them are some of the reasons why the BoG wants to take them off the economy.

“The GH¢1 note and GH¢2 note would eventually be phased out because they are not cost-effective in terms of the printing cost. They circulate very widely and come back very torn and soiled, and they are very difficult for our currency processing machines to process”.

He further said that “We have bales of GH¢1 notes that we are not able to process. So the view for the longer term is more or less get out of the GH¢1 and GH¢2 notes and use the GH¢1 and GH¢2 coins”.