News / National
Banks queuing taking a lot of productive time for Zimbabweans- Analyst
19 Apr 2017 at 08:12hrs | Views
A political and economic commentator Vince Musewe has said the bank queues for cash in Zimbabwe are taking a lot of productive time for the workers while $6 billion is available electronic for local transactions.
"Crises in any form are an opportunity for new paradigms to emerge. In Zimbabwe we are all queueing to withdraw hard cash of an estimated $300m
according to private sector and $900m as recently estimated by the RBZ. On the other hand it is agreed that there is $6bn worth of electronic funds
available for local transacting. That's more than enough for a vibrant local economy!" Musewe said.
"Regardless, if we all demand the lesser amount of cash of course they will be a shortage as demand clearly exceeds supply. The not so common common sense solution is to utilise the electronic funds of $6bn and the shortage will disappear so will the queues."
He said right now electronic funds can be transacted using several devices and the least costly is a cellphone.
"Zimbabwe has the highest cellphone penetration in Africa. So if we use the cellphone to do electronic funds transfers we will remove the problem of
excess demand to supply for hard cash and bank queues. This requires that eg salaries pensions etc are paid into your cellphone and you in turn can
transact without the need for hard cash. Even in the rural areas. This requires that merchants and other service providers accept cellphone
payments and so on," he said.
"In Zimbabwe we complain so much we have become experts on complaining. There are opportunities for our youngsters to innovate new technologies to solve our current problems but we have become very good at politicising every problem and waiting for change that may never come. It is true Zanu PF has messed up and we need them to go but in the mean time we have become so blind to opportunity and innovative solutions because of our anger at their failure and intransigence."
He said his point is that people can solve the hard cash liquidity problem now.
"In my opinion our attitude and unwillingness to change our behaviours continue to arrest us. I can bet that most of the responses to this post
will no doubt mostly be about why it will not work as opposed to how we could make it work," he said.
"Crises in any form are an opportunity for new paradigms to emerge. In Zimbabwe we are all queueing to withdraw hard cash of an estimated $300m
according to private sector and $900m as recently estimated by the RBZ. On the other hand it is agreed that there is $6bn worth of electronic funds
available for local transacting. That's more than enough for a vibrant local economy!" Musewe said.
"Regardless, if we all demand the lesser amount of cash of course they will be a shortage as demand clearly exceeds supply. The not so common common sense solution is to utilise the electronic funds of $6bn and the shortage will disappear so will the queues."
He said right now electronic funds can be transacted using several devices and the least costly is a cellphone.
"Zimbabwe has the highest cellphone penetration in Africa. So if we use the cellphone to do electronic funds transfers we will remove the problem of
excess demand to supply for hard cash and bank queues. This requires that eg salaries pensions etc are paid into your cellphone and you in turn can
transact without the need for hard cash. Even in the rural areas. This requires that merchants and other service providers accept cellphone
payments and so on," he said.
"In Zimbabwe we complain so much we have become experts on complaining. There are opportunities for our youngsters to innovate new technologies to solve our current problems but we have become very good at politicising every problem and waiting for change that may never come. It is true Zanu PF has messed up and we need them to go but in the mean time we have become so blind to opportunity and innovative solutions because of our anger at their failure and intransigence."
He said his point is that people can solve the hard cash liquidity problem now.
"In my opinion our attitude and unwillingness to change our behaviours continue to arrest us. I can bet that most of the responses to this post
will no doubt mostly be about why it will not work as opposed to how we could make it work," he said.
Source - Byo24News
