'Nothing wrong with R100 notes'

There is no problem and there was no problem with any R100 notes in circulation, or with any notes in circulation, the South African Reserve Bank said.

"The SARB has the utmost confidence in the South African currency and the currency is produced consistently in accordance with the highest international security standards," said Hlengani Mathebula, the Bank's spokesman.

This followed a Sunday Times report stating the Bank had outsourced the printing of R8-billion in R100 notes to a Swedish company, while hundreds of employees at its Pretoria banknote-making company sat idle.

According to the report, a Swedish paper-making and printing company, Crane AB, was producing the R100 notes.

"The move follows the discovery in May last year that a key security feature was missing from the R100 notes being printed by the SA Bank Note Company. The mistake, found in notes dating back as far as 2003, was due to a fault in one of SABN's machines," the report said.

"SABN documents indicate that local production of the R100 notes was stopped because the company's bosses were uncertain about the extent of the problem.

"And no other notes have been printed since February after the Reserve Bank returned more than R400-million in faulty R10 and R20 notes," the report added.

The banknote printing company is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Bank.

"According to insiders, the Reserve Bank feared that details of the faulty notes would embarrass the country ahead of the 2010 World Cup.

"Another reason was that it felt the rand could be compromised, especially following the public recall of the old R200 notes early last year," the report stated.