Dear Editor,

For decades, we have embraced cultural practices that do not appreciate the importance of maintenance, a service provided to keep a product in good operating condition. This has resulted in poor roads, dilapidated and derelict buildings, and outdated models of containment of information.

Sometimes, maintenance involves new thinking.

This leads to the arguments for or against the makeover of Jamaica’s banknotes.

A given practice in updating security features and design of such notes in a world of corruption is critical in safeguarding the financial industry, and despite high inflation and a seemingly low-value currency, aesthetics are important influencers of positive behaviour and choices towards liberation from poverty.

In welcoming our new banknotes, especially Michael Manley and Edward Seaga on our $2,000 note, we hope it will result in the end of political tribalism that has caused us to implode in uncontrollable criminality and corruption.

It is my wish that our $2,000 banknote will be nominated for the Banknote of the Year Award — the Olympics of paper money — administered by the International Bank Note Society (IBNS).

The IBNS has displayed the uniqueness of banknotes from every country.

Fiji has the only $7 banknote in the world, and Uganda’s most valuable banknote, a 50,000 shillings bill, was a winner in 2010.

Kazakhstan’s 1,000 tenge note was the 2013 IBNS winner and features the Kazakh flag, while China’s 100 yuan bill, which depicts the docking of two Chinese vessels was a 2015 finalist.

A 2017 finalist, Australia’s $10 note features two historical figures, and Russia’s 2,000 rubles note was a 2017 finalist and features a QR code.

The 2020 annual prestigious Banknote of the Year Award went to the Banco de Mexico for its 100 pesos note.

The vertical format note is printed on polymer and features one of Mexico’s national heroines and poet/writer Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. The reverse “piece de resistance” image features a temperate forest ecosystem which is known worldwide as the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve. The design continues to highlight Mexican cultural and historic characteristics with new graphic motifs.

We look forward to Jamaica someday winning this prestigious award.

Dudley C McLean II

Mandeville, Manchester

dm15094@gmail.com