Money bouquets warrant 10-year jail – BoZ

By BUUMBA CHIMBULU

THE Bank of Zambia (BoZ) has warned of a possible 10-year imprisonment, once convicted, for people using money to make a bouquet, as this is treated as deliberately mutilating and degrading the local currency.
Responding to a trend where citizens are using money, Kwacha and United States dollars to make a bouquet, BoZ Deputy Governor – Operations, Elias Chipimo discouraged the public from this practice.
Dr Chipimo said the BoZ Act had proper guidance on the use of money in the country. He said this at the monetary policy quarterly briefing in Lusaka yesterday.
“Under the BoZ Act, the wilfully mutilation and degradation of the currency is punishable by law. I think it is something like a million penalty units and if convicted, it will be up to 10 years imprisonment. The law is already set up, so we do not expect citizens to mutilate money in a way that you actively degrade that money.
“I think on this what we can say is that we strongly discourage this practice. For us to release the money that we do….it is procured at a very high cost and we do have policies in place relating to how we should utilise money,” he said.