The Bank of the Central African States, known by its French acronym as BEAC, has said images circulating online showing the design of new coins are fake.
The information is contained in a press release dated March 6, in which BEAC said new coins will be released at the beginning of April 2025. The bank did not provide a sample of what these coins will look like.
The fake images however showed a new design of coins with one of them containing a 350 FCFA digit.
“BEAC wishes to clarify that it is in no way the source of this false information and firmly denounces this crude manipulation, the clear objective of which is to deceive the population and sow confusion,” the press release read in parts.
The bank “calls on the public to exercise the utmost vigilance and to rely only on official sources of communication, which will be duly used for any announcement relating to the issue of the new coins, which will be put into circulation at the beginning of April 2025 in all member states of the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (CEMAC).”
BEAC’s decision to inject new coins into the CEMAC economy owes to an acute coin shortage experienced in recent years.
The scarcity has further slowed down business for small enterprises and cab drivers across Cameroon. In 2024, BEAC rolled out a batch of coins to increase the number of coins in circulation and reduce the scarcity.
Many people had reported challenges buying basic goods or taking taxis for lack of coins.
The cause of disappearance of coins in the Cameroonian economy has however, remained controversial. Many citizens have been quick to blame Chinese game operators who reportedly smuggle these coins to their countries where they use them to produce jewellery.
The injection of new coins follows BEAC’s introduction of new banknotes in 2022. The new notes also came with a different design and Arabic added as a third language after English and French.
As of now, coins used in the CEMAC Region range from FCFA 25 to FCFA 50, 100 and 500.
Since BEAC has branded the pictures of circulating coins as fake, it is not clear however, whether the new coins that it will introduce in April will come with a new design and a change in digits.
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