60-year old Julius Odinga Mboga has faced a rough month since the September 30 deadline to exchange old-generation Sh1,000 notes elapsed.
Mboga was caught unawares by the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) notice and now finds himself with Sh500,000 in worthless old notes.
Mboga, a retired mechanic who worked at Brooke Bond Limited in Limuru, still keeps the old notes under his mattress at home.
Mboga claimed to have misread the CBK notice but some of his relatives offered contradicting explanations on the situation.
On two different occassions in June, bank slips confirm that Mr. Mboga withdrew Sh200,000 and Sh300,000 from his Equity Bank.
"When you look at the newspaper, the reminder stated that 'Take the thousands shillings to the bank 'no' (Mboga misread the last word 'now').
"Up to now, these people have refused to exchange my notes" Odinga told Nation.
His younger brother, Mr Ouko and sister-in-law Jackline Otieno, however, claimed Mboga was misguided by boda boda riders and neighbors leading to him missing the deadline.
"We asked him whether he had one thousand shilling notes in his house before the CBK deadline but he did not want to listen to us.
"The people who he interacts with outside the home always told him that his brothers will take all his money, so he kept it to himself," stated his sister-in-law.
A number of pastoralists who had ventured deep into Tana River and Lamu also face the same conundrum, having missed the deadline while out searching for pasture for their livestock on long journeys.
They are now pleading with CBK Governor Patrick Njoroge to organize a short window for them to exchange the notes.
