By Civil servants and everyone else who does not export should not get cash but rather should use plastic and urging Zimbabweans to change their behavior on cash circulation, Barclays Managing Director George Guvamatanga said
During the mobile money conference held recently, Guvamatanga said the only people privileged to demand for their cash where those involved in exporting. To Guvamatanga these include were the tobacco, cotton farmers.
“It is not possible in this world to have a cashless society but we can have a less cash society so in never advocate for cashless society that’s not possible, you cannot have something that you don’t have or created, you have to understand that if you want to have USD it has to be exported so if you ask me a tobacco and cotton farmers, makorokoza(gold miners) should get their money in cash if they want it when they go to the bank because they have exported.
“A civil servant cannot go to the bank and demand all his money in cash because they have exported nothing and anyone else who does not export cash should not demand cash and if you have no exported all you have is RTGS. e swipe and other mobile money payments” said Guvamatanga
The cash shortages have risen and continues to grow as pensioner farmers and the large populace of Zimbabwe continues to struggle at the banks with some spending nigt at the bank queue hoping to get some cash and
It was also noted that the high banking and mobile money charges in Zimbabwe deterred people from doing e-transactions. With these high charges, most Zimbabweans are now forced to use hard cash for payments.
A concerned motorist Ruvimbo Muchena who spoke to TechnoMag said the three tier pricing model used by merchants of rating the United State Dollars, Bond Notes and e-Payments was affecting her big time.
“Now you go there with a card they say they don’t a have a swipe machine. However banks have given certain merchants swipe machines to alleviate the cash problem but when these merchants go to the bank to make TTs or make supplies out of the country they are told we need cash in US dollars which then becomes a conflict which does not benefit the supplies thereby ending up denying digital solutions which then comes back to the same people to look for cash” she said
The attendees of the conference were also wondering if the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor Dr John Mangundya consults the bankers after Guvamatanga said there are fundamentals which need to be addressed. Guvamatanga said the 300million bond notes to be injected will not ease the cash crisis if Zimbabweans do not change their behaviour.
Guvamatanga said what happens is that the injected bond notes when given to civil servants the money circulates in the informal wholesalers who do not bank. When the money ends there it will disappear never to be seen again in the formal market.
Zimbabweans were urged to change their behavior on cash handling issues and allow the money to circulate in and out of the bank
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