The South African government will introduce new coins with the word ‘South Africa’ on them in all official languages in 2023, according to a statement from a virtual Cabinet Meeting held on Wednesday, 31 August.
In a statement on Wednesday, the cabinet announced it had approved changes to the coins, which will see the official languages rotated annually over the next ten years.
The changes are significant, as it will be the fourth time since the SA Mint started pressing its own coins in 1961 that it introduces a new series of coins. The country is currently using the Third Decimal Coin Series, which was introduced in 1989.
“Three languages will be used in the R5 coin; two languages on the R2, 50c, 20c, 10c coins, and R1 will be in one language,” the statement read.
Though the cabinet approved the “dimension, design, and compilation” of the coins, no images of the next series of South African coins have been released to the public yet.
The last most significant change occurred in 1989 with the removal of Jan van Riebeek, a Dutch colonial administrator who appeared on one side of the half cent, 1c, 2c, 5c, 10c, 50c and R1coins. His image was removed and replaced with the South Africa’s coat of arms.
Since then, the half cent, 1c, 2c, 5c, have been removed from circulation and the R2 and R5 coins were added.
Source: Business Insider, The South African, image from Business insider: Elvira Wood