When Queen Elizabeth died in September - the first thing we asked was: will her face continue to grace Belize's currency notes? Or, will it be replaced by her successor, King Charles? Or, will Belize go the route of other Caribbean nations and adorn the notes with the images of our homegrown national heroes?
Well, it seems government has chosen option #3 - to put the pictures of Belizean heroes on the notes. The Prime Minister announced it on his party's radio show - "The Whip" - this morning:
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"I had been in discussion with the Central Bank and I've said that since now the Queen had died, that new bills have to come up and I presented it to cabinet and I will send it to you so you could show the Belizean people, beautiful bills. This is giving us now the opportunity to use our local national heroes."
Vaughan Gill
"I remember they question you at the time of the passing of the Queen and you said when the time comes, we will discuss."
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"And so the time has come whereby I think by October they will be printing. Right now, they are printing, because they need right now. But I present it to cabinet and cabinet has agreed that we should use our national heroes, so going forward, I think October, the notes are going to be using the pictures of George Price and Phillip Goldson."
We reached out to the Governor of the Central Bank today and he told us it's too early for an interview since the details on a possible timeframe for introduction, recalling of current notes in circulation and other issues are still being worked out.
He added that there will be a public information campaign before any new notes are launched.
