DUSHANBE (TCA) — The National Bank of Tajikistan is considering the use of the country’s President Emomali Rahmon’s portrait on a proposed new 1,000-somoni banknote, which would be worth about $127, RFE/RL’s Tajik Service reported.
On December 14, the National Bank’s press service confirmed reports about the possible new banknotes, saying the idea was proposed by a secondary school teacher named Hasanboi Asadov from the northern Isfara region.
Currently, Tajikistan’s highest denomination banknote is the 100-somoni bill, worth about $12.70.
Asadov told RFE/RL that he proposed the idea a year ago, and recently received a letter from the bank that his proposal was being considered.
The reports come just days after Kazakhstan issued a 10,000-tenge banknote with a portrait of President Nursultan Nazarbayev as part of the celebration of the country’s 25th anniversary of independence from the former Soviet Union. The new banknote is worth about $30 at the current exchange rate.
In December 2015, Tajikistan followed another example of Kazakhstan and adopted a so-called “Leader of the Nation” law that granted President Rahmon lifelong immunity from prosecution for anything he has done while in office.
The text of the legislation was similar to a 2000 constitutional provision about the first president of Kazakhstan.
In Turkmenistan, the late President Saparmurat Niyazov is depicted on almost all banknotes and coins issued from 1993 to 2005.
After Niyazov’s death in December 2006, his portraits on the national currency, the manat, were replaced by depictions of historic Turkmen figures.
