The Sierra Leone Bank Governor, Kelfala Murana Kallon has on the 98.1 Radio Democracy program, clarified the misconceptions around the redenomination of the Sierra Leone Leones and has enlightened Sierra Leoneans on how the New Leones will be used.

Since the 14th December 2021 when the Parliament of Sierra Leone Passed the Redenomination of Leones Bill into law, Sierra Leoneans have been having the thought that the government have cheated them, because the redenomination means that their le 1,000,000 will become le 1000.

But according to the Bank Governor, the zeros will be omitted from the old Leones but that does not mean that the new Leones will be lesser in value than the old Leones. He stated that the le 1,000,000 which will become le 1000 will be used in the same way as a le 1,000,000 is used presently.

He added that, when the three zeros are taken off the money, the zeros from the prices will also be taken off. For example; if you have been buying petrol at le 10,000 per litter, you will now buy at 10 new Leones, which means everything will remain the same and nobody will suffer any loss.

He explained that they decided to take three zeros off in order not to confuse the arithmetic, if  for example three zeros is taken from le 1000 it becomes le 1, so the new le 1 will be printed as the current le 1000 but it will be smaller in size in order to fit in a wallet.

Governor Kallon continued that the new le 2 note will have the same Wallace Johnson picture as the present le 2000 note, same for the le5000 and the le 10, 000 which will be le 5 and le 10 respectively and the only difference will be the le 20,000 note which will be le 20 which we do not have presently in the country.

He furthered that the le 20 note is dedicated to women and it will have the picture of Mrs Constance John who is a Teacher, Politician and a trail blazer for women, on the front and the back will have the picture of the pupils with first positions on the NPSE from different districts.

He stated that because of the lack of coins to give as change whenever people purchases things, they will be adding coins as change which will be in cents, to tackle the changes problems in Sierra Leone. He said there will be one cent, five cent, ten cent ,twenty five cent and fifty cent.

he ended with these few words “one of the things we want to make the people of this country understand is that is doesn’t  matter what kind of work you do, as long as it is done well, it will help to develop the country.