Published: April 8, 2026
MONROVIA — The Central Bank of Liberia says it needs to print new banknotes because the economy is growing, existing notes are deteriorating faster than they can be replaced, and without action now, the country could run out of currency within the next two years.
Senior officials made that case Wednesday at a press conference at the bank’s headquarters, offering a detailed technical defense of the proposed printing, which requires legislative authorization and is expected to unfold over the next 12 to 24 months. The briefing came as President Joseph N. Boakai Sr. prepares to convene a special session of the Legislature beginning April 9, with banknote printing and a supplementary budget at the top of the agenda.
P. Mah Kruah, Deputy Director for Research, Policy and Planning, led the presentation and opened with what he described as the universal rationale for currency printing anywhere in the world.
“The primary need for printing currency the world over is to replace worn-out, mutilated or unfit currency in circulation, and to respond to expanding demand in the economy,” Kruah said. “When the economy is growing, there is a need to bring additional currency because transactions will increase.”
A Cash Economy With a Currency Problem
Kruah was direct about the structural reality that makes Liberia’s currency management challenge more acute than in more digitized economies. Despite advances in mobile money and efforts to reduce cash dependency, Liberia remains predominantly cash-based, and physical notes deteriorate rapidly under local conditions.
“In Liberia there are humid conditions,” he said. “If I put the money in my pocket, it will end up getting wet. The humid condition will make the money wet, and if you are not careful, the money gets mutilated.” He also cited the common practice of bundling notes with rubber bands as a source of physical damage that accelerates the need for replacement.
Paper-based banknotes, Kruah explained, have a lifespan of between two and five years. Since Liberia’s current LS3 currency series began entering circulation in 2021, a significant volume of notes, particularly lower denominations, has already deteriorated to the point of being unfit for use.
“Even some of the $50 notes, when somebody gives it to you, you don’t want to even receive it,” he said. “Most of them have defects, and a lot of our people take the currency, they write their name on it, they mutilate it in different ways.”
The Central Bank launched a Clean Note policy in September of last year, he noted, making the current replacement exercise a logical extension of that initiative.
Four Reasons for the New Printing
Kruah outlined four specific drivers behind the proposed printing, which he said distinguish the current exercise from the 2021 to 2024 currency reform that introduced the LS3 series and retired the older LS1 and LS2 notes.
The first is straightforward replacement of mutilated and unfit banknotes already in circulation. The second is expansion demand, as Liberia’s economy grows, projected at 5.6 percent in 2026, more physical currency is needed to facilitate the increased volume of transactions a larger economy generates.
The third driver is the government’s gold purchase program. The Central Bank is working to build up gold reserves as part of its foreign exchange reserve accumulation strategy, and purchasing gold requires disbursing domestic currency.
“In Ghana, for example, gold is part of reserve money, part of the international reserve,” Kruah said. “So how do you get the gold? You have to buy the gold and monetize it before it becomes reserve. So there is a need to get additional money to buy gold if you want to use gold as international reserve.”
The fourth driver is de-dollarization — the long-term policy goal of reducing the economy’s dependence on the United States dollar and increasing the use of the Liberian dollar in everyday transactions.
“You and I want to move towards a Liberia that uses the Liberian dollar only in the economy,” Kruah said. “To do that, you have to get enough banknotes that will facilitate transactions.”
On the Inflation Question
Anticipating the concern that would dominate any public discussion of printing money, Kruah addressed the inflation risk head-on, arguing that currency printing does not automatically cause prices to rise.
“Simple economics will tell you that when more money is out there chasing few goods, you have inflation,” he said. “But when the economy is growing, which means production is growing, and you increase money supply consistent with the growth in production, that is not inflationary, it does not cause inflation.”
He described two specific monetary policy tools the Central Bank intends to deploy to prevent excess liquidity from building up in the system. The first is open market operations — the buying and selling of Central Bank bills, which allow the bank to sterilize liquidity by pulling money out of circulation when it detects excess supply.
“You issue the bill, people buy it, the payment you sterilize, you keep it from circulation,” Kruah explained. “When you know that currency outside is reducing, you redeem the bill you have issued before and put more money out there when you know there is a shortage.”
The second tool is the reserve requirement, the proportion of deposits that commercial banks are required to hold at the Central Bank. By raising or lowering that requirement, the Central Bank can tighten or loosen the amount of money available for lending and spending in the broader economy.
“By varying or adjusting the reserve requirement, the Central Bank uses that as a policy tool to adjust the money supply,” Kruah said. “With stable exchange rate conditions and improved domestic supply, the pass-through to inflation should remain contained.”
Transparency Pledges and the IMF Factor
Mussa Kamara, Senior Technical Advisor, addressed the accountability dimension of the exercise, drawing on his experience with the 2021 to 2024 currency reform to assure the public that the same safeguards will govern the new process.
“During that exercise, we had a lot of external involvement from the level of the U.S. government,” Kamara said. “We had an international partner crew hired by the U.S. government to work with the Central Bank to ensure that the procurement process was transparent and based on best international practice. We are happy that the process went on smoothly with no issue at all.”
He said the Central Bank has a specialized currency procurement policy, distinct from its general procurement framework, developed with assistance from the International Monetary Fund and other central banks in the sub-region. The same policy will apply to the current exercise.
Kamara also disclosed that global demand for currency printing is surging, and the supply chain for banknote production is under strain.
“Countries all over the world are now putting in their requests for currency – even the biggest economies, the U.S., Germany, all of the higher income countries, everybody is putting in currency requests,” he said. “Some of the printing companies are having serious challenges with supplies, such as paper mills.”
As a small economy, Liberia is not well-positioned in that queue, Kamara acknowledged. The expected delivery window for the new notes is 12 to 24 months from the initiation of the procurement process, meaning the currency the Legislature is being asked to authorize now may not arrive until late 2026 or 2027.
“The policy we are talking about printing right now is not something we are sure of even receiving in the next one year,” he said. “We are rather talking about anywhere between 12 months to 24 months. But we have to start the process; otherwise, we may go out of currency.”
The procurement will proceed in two stages: an emergency process to engage qualified printers quickly, followed by a competitive bidding process consistent with international standards. Kamara said the Central Bank will invite some of the best security printing companies in the world, as it did previously.
Christopher Wallace, Senior Director for Economic Policy, noted that unlike most central banks in the region, the Central Bank of Liberia is legally required to obtain legislative authorization before printing currency – a constraint that makes the process more public than it would otherwise be.
“Currency printing is a highly sensitive security issue,” Wallace said, explaining that the Central Bank does not normally publicize such operations because of counterfeiting risks. “But because of the nature of our legal system, it is difficult nowadays for us all to print currency before the public knows it, because anything that goes to the legislature becomes a matter of public discussion.”
He said the Central Bank will maintain regular public communication through radio programs, quarterly reports, legislative briefings and engagement with civil society organizations throughout the printing and distribution process. The IMF, under whose program Liberia currently operates, will be consulted at both the technical and advisory levels.
“Liberia is under the IMF program,” Kruah had noted earlier in the briefing. “People who honor the IMF program, there are certain criteria you must meet, certain benchmarks, you don’t just spend wastefully. Before you even print, the process must be guarded by even these international partners so that international best practices are observed.”
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