ZACC To Investigate EcoCash And Its Agents For Selling Cash

Zimbabwe’s Anti-Corruption Commission has said like you and me, they are not particularly pleased with what EcoCash agent’s and the EcoCash system has become.

The issue of selling cash by agents has caught the attention of the Commission which has opened an investigation looking into this (took them long enough). The commission sent out a series of tweets this morning notifying the public that investigations are underway:

We are concerned about the volumes of isolated of reports we have received in connection @EcoCashZW agents manulating the cash ecosystem to their unfair advantage by selling cash & at prohibiting rates. We are aware that this practice is enabled & supported at a systematic level.
An investigation has been opened which must determine and charge the real perpetrators behind this rot. We hope that @econetzimbabwe and @ReserveBankZIM will also look into this seriously to bring an urgent and lasting solution.
We believe that in order to effectively fight corruption, all avenues that promote corruption regardless of size must be shut with urgency and we look forward to work with all stakeholders in such scenarios to actively close these pilferage opportunities.
ZACC via Twitter

Last month EcoCash said it had shut down over a thousand lines belonging to agents who were selling cash. The only problem is that a thousand lines are a drop in an ocean when you have an agent network of over 26 000 agents (as of Q4 2018) and the majority is suspected of being part of the shenanigans.

The problems regarding EcoCash agents have persisted since 2016 and because cash has been hard to find, it has become a commodity that is actually sold instead of solely being used for trade. It will be interesting to follow the investigations by ZACC who believe that the selling of cash is “enabled and supported at a systematic level” i.e within EcoCash.

Ultimately one would hope that this could mark the end of the selling of cash by EcoCash, a practice which has further pressured already hard-pressed Zimbabwean wallets.