No more five cents
According to Hlengani Mathebula, the South African Reserve Bank's (SARB) head of group strategy and communications department, the production of the five cents coins has been discontinued with effect from April 1 last year.
Many members of the community were not aware of this change, which was approved by Cabinet over a year ago.
A complaint was received by the Advertiser from a Witfield resident that customers are not receiving their five cents change from their local supermarkets.
The complainant had a concern that supermarkets are profiting from withholding five cents change from customers.
Spar at The Square manager, Savva Kyriakides, denies these allegations, and says supermarkets rounds off their tills to the nearest 10 denominations.
“The banks don’t have five cents to give us, so we don’t keep five cents anymore,” he says.
A teller manager of a local bank, who doesn’t want to be named, says the one, two and five cents have been discontinued, and the 10 cents is the lowest denomination the bank receives.
“We still allow customers to come in and exchange the disused coins and that is why we still have a few,” says the source.
Mathebula reiterates this, adding that the five cents coin remains legal tender and the public is encouraged to continue to recirculate this coin together with all South African coins.
“All banks and businesses are obliged to continue to accept the five cents coins as legal tender,” he says.
The SARB has also issued a statement that in an effort to reduce the production cost of coins, the current 10 cents bronze alloy coin will be replaced with a new 10 cents denomination coin, which is darker in appearance.
“The 10 cents coin will be a copper-plated steel coin, and there will be no changes made to the themes on the coin,” says Mathebula.
