By 
By Ross Moyo
The Consumer Protection Commission headed by its chairperson, Dr. Mthokozisi Nkosi has joined hands with the Confederation of Zimbabwe Retailers (CZR) led by its president Dr. Denford Mutashu to condemn businesses that are denying the use of swipe machines also known as point of sale machines. The two organisations revealed that all businesses should comply with Zimbabwe’s statutes that make it mandatory for them to use swipe for transactions after all plastic money is the safest mode of doing business.
“CZR implores all shops formal or informal to comply with regulatory and statutory obligations guiding their operations like installation of working point-of-sale machines for the convenience of transacting public,” said Mutashu.
“The multi-currency policy is law and both the ZiG and USD are legal tender in equal measure. Banks should expedite issuance of point-of-sale machines across the country’s economy,” he said.
Dr Mutashu added: “It is illegal to deny a consumer access to swipe or pay via mobile platforms in local currency.”
Speaking on the same page, the Consumer Protection Commission launched an operation against businesses that were rejecting Point-of-Sale machines, making it mandatory for all businesses to accept transactions made using swipe machines. Point Of Sale machines reduce the risk of people getting robbed moving with cash. The use of swipe machines also protects clients from unfair business practices like being denied their right to buy when they have the money, but do not want to be seen moving around with cash in their pockets, rather carrying a simple card that in many cases can be connected to both ZiG and US dollar bank accounts and can be “swiped” for both currencies, with the consumer choosing the currency in most cases.
The Consumer Protection commission released a statement reading the riot act on the practice by some unscrupulous businesses who were operating without point-of-sale machines. The commission this was in clear violation of the laws of the country and infringing consumers’ right to choose when carrying out their daily transactions. The Commission also added that, the Consumer Protection Act Section 51 (h) prohibits businesses from engaging in any unfair trade practices, which included, but were not limited to violating consumers’ right to choose.
“To protect consumers from unfair business practices, the Consumer Protection Commission is carrying out an enforcement blitz, starting with the fuel retail industry where several service stations have been found wanting and issued with compliance notices by the commission in line with Section 68 of the Act.
“The commission found out that out of the 27 service stations inspected, 80 percent of them did not have point-of-sale machines,” said the statement.
The Consumers last resort also added that, the enforcement of this launch will be extended to all businesses so that they comply with provisions of the law. “Those businesses found not to be complying will be penalised in line with the requirements of the law,” reads the statement. The Commission further stated the Finance Act Number One of 2018, which amended Section 10 of the Bank Use Promotion and Suppression of Money Laundering Act required businesses to acquire any device that facilitated the electronic payment of its goods or services. The commission said It also required for the facilitation of the payment of its goods or services electronically using a mobile telephone or computer.
“Members of the public are being urged to assist the commission by reporting businesses not giving consumers the option of swiping for their goods and services through hot line numbers,” read the statement.
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