Where’s The Money? Matiang’i Says Banks Facing Shortage Of Sh200 Notes Days To Polls

NAIROBI, Kenya, Jul, 27 – With less than a fortnight to the August 9 polls, Interior Cabinet secretary Dr. Fred Matiag’i says that banks nationwide are facing a shortage of Sh200 notes, alluding that the cash is being withdrawn by politicians and used in alleged voter bribery incidents.

Matiang’i said that politicians are hoarding the notes only using them as incentives to lure voters in a bid to shamelessly secure their political futures.

Speaking during the launch of the inaugural Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing National Risk Assessment Report (2021), Matiang’i said that it was upon the electorate to vote in leaders of integrity who would help them transform their societies.

“All of you Kenyans who have been moving around the villages, you have seen people carrying money in bags, lining up citizens giving them Sh200. Bankers in the room you understand you have a shortage of Sh200 and Sh100 in your banks because politicians are bribing villagers, people are not working, they are standing on the roadside to get Sh200 from all these money launderers and they are laundering their way to elective institutions, do you think they will actually tidy up the legislative environment as it were? It is a question we must answer,”

Matiang’i further said that if Kenyans do not vote wisely then a huge number of elected leaders will constitute ‘money launderers’.

“After this election, 40 per cent of the people who will sit in elective institutions are active players in money laundering and trafficking. So do you hope that these people will tidy up the legislative environments?” 

“The election we are moving to will be critical in the decisions that we will take in the way this issue will be addressed, because we either elect a government that is cozy with money laundering because it is their way of life or a government that is against money laundering that has got a basic minimum level of integrity that will join all of us in fighting this because the challenges of these are real,” he said

As part of the report, the CS observed that as the government phased out the old currency for the new, car dealerships in the country suddenly started seeking the new currency.

“Car dealers changed billions of shillings. How many cars do you need to sell to be able to have billions and all these dealers are friends of senior politicians? They are now the ones financing all these Sh200 and Sh500 notes arrangement in the village,”

The government now says that the expanse of crime has gone beyond terrorism as envisaged in the traditional sense and the new face of crime is being filed by money laundering.

“Whether we are talking about very dynamic and sophisticated cybercrime, all of it is being financed by money laundering,” 

Kenyans and institutions have now been called upon to dined the integrity of the country’s financial institution in order,” to defeat the white collar thugs,”  destroying the country’s fabric.