South Sudan ends circulation of old currency
June 29, 2007 (JUBA) — The circulation of the Sudanese Dinar currency ends today June 29th in south Sudan, the Acting Assistant Governor and Director of Administration and Finance in the Bank of Southern Sudan (BOSS) Mathing Maying told Radio Miraya.
The Dinar coins will continue to work up to September 1 where the dinar will cease to be legal tender.
More that five billions and two hundred million Sudanese Dinar ($26m) have been exchanged to the new pound, the South Sudan central bank said.
Mathing Maying emphasized that those who are still carrying the Dinar currency should change them at Commercial Banks or the Bank of South Sudan in Juba.
Long queues in Juba town at the Nile Commercial Bank and BOSS were seen, where people were trying to change the Sudanese Dinar into Sudanese Pound.
Ethiopian, Kenyan and Ugandan money will cease to be as legal tender and exchanged for pounds until June 30. The southern Sudan authorities have exchanged around USh 566 million Ugandan Shilling ($330,000) and 12 million Kenyan Shilling ($180,000)
The pound was introduced in January under the terms of a 2005 peace deal that ended over two decades of north-south civil war. Many southerners saw the old currency, the dinar, as a symbol of northern Arab nationalism.
(ST)