redenomination

[addin]

hye...this is gonna be in iraq.....i take this redenomination plan from ghana currency that slash 4 zero...in 2006....enjoy it....

link= http://www.thestatesmanonline.com/pages/news_detail.php?newsid=1602&section=9

The new Ghana Cedi

. , 04/12/2006

By Kwaku Kwarteng, Ministry of Finance & Economic Planning

Some time next year, the new cedi will be here. Until all the old cedi notes get phased out of the system, the new cedi will be called the Ghana Cedi (GH¢). Very soon, we will all see it with our eyes. When I say soon, I am talking about in eight months' time. The Bank of Ghana says it is going to be in July 2007. That is not really much time because, speaking with people about the conversions, I realise we would need close to that time for the education.

And I think the country will also need that time to neutralise the prayers of those who want the change-over to become problematic. I am referring to the politicians. I heard one of them say on radio that the change to the new cedi is a ploy by the NPP Government to steal people"s money. I couldn’t believe it. Politicians are really strange people.

WHY THE CHANGE?

Well, apart from a few opposition politicians, people generally support the redenomination. And there are good reasons for that. These days, you cannot put ¢5,000,000 in your pocket without people noticing that there is something in your pocket, especially if it is in ¢5,000 or ¢2,000 notes.

If you are one of those who deal in large sums of money, like ¢100 million upwards, then you always have to carry your money in a small sack or in a car boot. Which brings me to a point I forgot to make earlier on. In addition to opposition politicians, the other group of people who are uncomfortable with the change are the thieves, pick-pockets and the armed robbers. Carrying money on you so visibly helps their trade.

But besides the risks and the inconvenience of carriage, the current denominations make book-keeping rather difficult. If you are writing a hundred billion cedis you have to write as many as eleven zeros (¢100,000,000 000). The zeros have become too many in our money.

For those who deal with national revenues and expenditures, they are always dealing with trillion or billions or millions of cedis. It becomes so hard to write all the zeros. As a way out, these days, you see people writing Tr, Bn or M for trillion, billion and million respectively.

The appearance of these shortcuts in our books and in our writing itself suggests that we are sick and tired of the many zeros. The only way forward is to redenominate. We thank the Bank of Ghana for understanding our problems.

SO, WHAT IS REDENOMINATION?

So, what is redenomination? Well, it is simple. Bank of Ghana is going to do something to our money so that instead of using say, ¢500 000 to buy something, we would now use fifty Ghana cedis (GH¢50) to buy that same thing. And that GH¢50 would be a single note!

So you walk to the shop, pull out your wallet or purse, remove a single note of GH¢50 to buy that something, and off you go; no counting of money, no nothing. You just pay with your single note and walk away.

The other time when I explained this to somebody, the person asked me an interesting question. Why won’t we just make ¢500,000 notes and other big notes so that when you go to buy something worth (say) ¢500,000, you just pull out one of the ¢500,000 notes, buy the thing and go away without any counting of money?

Good question. We can do that, and the problem of plenty counting of money would be reduced, but because the money would still be written as ¢500 000, the plenty zeros would still be there in our writings and in our accounting books; which is not good enough. So, to solve the problem well, we have to reduce the zeros on the new notes. Thus, in the redenomination, ¢500 000 will become 50 Ghana cedis (GH¢50).

The broader rule is that, ¢10 000 will be equivalent to one Ghana cedi. Which is to say, ¢20 000 will be equivalent to two Ghana cedis. ¢50 000 will be equivalent to five Ghana cedis. ¢100 000) will be equivalent to ten Ghana cedis, etc.

For the purpose of doing the conversions, just remove four zeros (0000) from the cedi (¢) amount and you would get the equivalent Ghana cedi (GH¢) amount.

PESEWAS (p) AND GHANA PESEWAS (GHp)

Converting amounts that are more than ¢10,000is fairly straightforward. But we need to be more careful in dealing with amounts less than ¢10 000.

We all remember what we learnt in primary school that ¢1is equivalent to hundred pesewas. Which means half cedi (¢½) is equivalent to fifty pesewas (50p).

Now, let’s say you have ¢6000 to convert to the new denomination. First, I would try and change this money to pesewas, which would be 600 000 pesewas. I just multiplied the 6000 by 100 since one cedi is the same as a 100 pesewas. Then, in the same way that we removed four zeros from the cedi to get the equivalent Ghana cedis, we can remove four zeros from the pesewas to get the equivalent Ghana pesewas (GHp).

So, our 600 000 pesewas will become 60 Ghana pesewas. That means, the ¢6000 (which is the same as 600 000 pesewas) is equivalent to 60 Ghana pesewas or 60 GHp. It is as simple as that.

ANOTHER PESEWA EXAMPLE

Take a sachet of water costing ¢300. If we want to convert it into the new denomination, we would start by remembering that ¢300 is the same as 30,000 pesewas. Again, I just multiplied the 300 by 100 since one cedi is the same as a hundred pesewas. Actually, right now, if you manage to gather enough pesewas up to 30 000 pesewas, you can go and buy sachet water with it, and it would be accepted. If the water seller says he or she would not accept it, you can report the person to the police.

Now, to get the equivalent of ¢300 or 30,000 pesewas in the new denomination, we drop four zeros from the 30,000 pesewas to get 3 Ghana pesewas. So, when we start issuing the new money, a sachet of water, which now sells for ¢300, will sell for 3GHp.

THE TRICK

The trick is that when you have to convert a cedi amount of ¢10,000 or more, just remove four zeros to get the equivalent Ghana cedi amount. If the amount in cedis is less than ¢10 000, multiply by 100 to turn it into pesewas before removing the four zeros to get the equivalent in Ghana pesewas. Simple.

[Nani?]

gtfo... now.

[addin]

for more enjoyable read..click the link i give...

link> http://www.thestatesmanonline.com/pages/news_detail.php?newsid=1602&section=9

[Zemaduvant]

We all know about this and have known about this, it's really nothing new..