This archive report was first published on 19 October 2019.
Published on October 19, 2019, a 60-year-old Kenyan man, Julius Odinga Mboga, has found himself in a distressing situation after failing to exchange his Sh500,000 in old Sh1,000 notes before the demonetization deadline.
Mboga, a former mechanic at Brook Bond Kenya Limited in Limuru, claimed that he misread a newspaper reminder by the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) and thought the deadline was in the future, not past.
Speaking to the Daily Nation, Mboga said he was shocked to learn that the old Sh1,000 note was no longer in use after he attempted to pay for a meal using it at a nearby hotel.
‘I went to a hotel and when I tried paying for the meal with a thousand shillings note, they refused and told me the currency is no longer being used,’ said Mboga.
He had withdrawn Sh200,000 from his account at Equity Bank in Siaya on June 14th this year and a further Sh300,000 on July 16th, according to bank slips in his possession.
His younger brother, Ouko, and his sister-in-law Jackline Otieno claimed that neighbors and boda boda riders misled Mboga into not exchanging the money.
‘We asked him whether he had one thousand shillings notes in his house before the CBK deadline but he did not want to listen to us. The people who he interacts with outside the home always told him that his brothers will take all his money, so he kept it to himself,’ said Mrs. Otieno.
