Sellers, peddlers and other business people in Zinnah Town market in Todee District are reportedly refusing to accept the minted coins which were introduced on the local market recently.
According to the report, the marketers claimed that there has been no public education carried out by the Central Bank of Liberia or those responsible on the introduction of the money on the local market.
Solomon Walker, a resident of Zinnah Town told the media that whenever any coin (money) is used for the exchange of goods purchased, sellers would always refuse to accept same on ground that it is not real money.
“The refusal of the coins is not only limited to the marketers alone, but other traders including commercial vehicles’ drivers who also consider the money as fake and does not represent in any way as state property,” they noted.
By all account, residents in rural Montserrado County are not only Liberians refusing to accept the money. Recently, some residents in Gbarnga, Bong County, did likewise by refusing the minted coins.
However, the need for mass public education or awareness should not be overemphasized because the vast majority of the country’s present youthful population of over 70 percent neither saw nor used the coins that were in circulation prior to the civil war.
Now, after more than 30 years since the war broke out and ended after 15 years, this is the first time minted coins have been introduced on the local market.
Until the coins were introduced fortnight ago, Liberia was the only country arguably on the African continent, if not the sub-region (West) Africa that does not have coins used as legal tender.
