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Leonard Ncube in Victoria Falls
RESERVE Bank of Zimbabwe governor Dr John Mangudya has urged Zimbabweans especially Government workers to desist from the culture of visiting banking halls to withdraw their salaries in cash as their employer does not deposit hard currency in the banks for them.
Speaking at the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Zimbabwe (ICAZ) Winter School yesterday, Dr Mangudya said Finance and Economic Development Minister Patrick Chinamasa makes civil servants salaries transactions using Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) hence people should not expect to get cash from banks.
Dr Mangudya challenged civil servants to embrace technology and use digital transaction platforms than to blame banks if they fail to get cash.
“Let’s have a digitalised cash economy, this is what they are doing in USA. Your mobile network operators should come up with products that you can present to the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare for use in paying civil servants and pensioners.
“The Finance Minister deposits RTGS in banks and not cash but we have people queuing wanting to withdraw cash which was never deposited there in the first place. That’s a disconnect and if you don’t want to go digital or use plastic money, then go and queue at the bank but there is no need for that,” said Dr Mangudya.
He was giving an update on the prevailing monetary situation in the country, where he said the country was generally in the right direction. The RBZ governor called for strategies for formalising the informal sector where the country is running a dual economy with money “going from the formal into the informal sector and never coming back.”
Participants who were drawn from chartered accounting firms around the country queried the cost of mobile money transactions which they said were too exorbitant hence discouraging mobile money transactions.
@ncubeleon
Online Reporter