EcoCash CEO Blocks Entrepreneur On Twitter After He Complained About Agents Charging More For ‘Cashing-Out’

Whilst we were busy ranting about the fuel prices, a war was happening on Twitter between Kuda Musasiwa and Natalie Jabangwe. Kuda Musasiwa is that guy behind Fresh In A Box and Natalie Jabangwe is the CEO of EcoCash– both popular figures.

What started as a threat to sue EcoCash for ignoring the practice of its agents to charge premiums by Kuda Musasiwa ended up being a personal attack on him by Natalie Jabangwe.

How did it start?

Everybody knows the modus operandi of many EcoCash agents these days- they are selling cash. Perhaps out of anger of buying cash from an EcoCash agent, Kuda Musasiwa ran a poll asking people to join him in a class action against EcoCash for allowing this practice to happen under their nose.

He went on to say that EcoCash was reluctant to stop this practice by its agents since it benefits when people cash out more money than they had to through higher fees.

Did you know @EcoCashZW Agents selling you back your cash is criminal and Ecocash paying them a commission on the higher amount is against their terms and conditions. And also that Ecocash pocketing the charges from higher rate is also criminal. Who will join me in a class suit
— Kuda Musasiwa (@begottensun) May 19, 2019

Natalie enters the scene

Angered by Kuda Musasiwa’s accusations, EcoCash’s CEO came blazing with a personal attack which, no doubt, belittled Kuda Musasiwa’s business acumen.

After that tweet, Natalie did the unthinkable, she just blocked Kuda Musasiwa.

EcoCash rescues itself

As I said earlier on, Kuda Musasiwa is a popular figure so his words reach many corners of Zim. Being aware of this, EcoCash decided to issue a press release warning agents who are selling cash to stop this practice.

Dear valued customer. Be advised that EcoCash Agents are not supposed to charge extra for Cash Out and you must not pay extra to Cash Out. Report all cases of Agents charging extra to Cash Out to 114 or on the EcoCash social media pages. pic.twitter.com/1FpVcEtioL
— EcoCash Zimbabwe (@EcoCashZW) May 20, 2019

Zvinobatsira Kuchena sometimes. Now they are covering their backs. We thank God pic.twitter.com/XGQNRToKRn
— Kuda Musasiwa (@begottensun) May 20, 2019

I would like to officially report all of them. You can call the people who cashed out in the last hour to confirm. So please officially record my report. All of them. Thank you for finally taking notice. We look forward to feed back on our report. https://t.co/EqOlyPeuiq
— Kuda Musasiwa (@begottensun) May 20, 2019

It goes on and on

Even with the warning, EcoCash sent out, Kuda Musasiwa still had no kind words for ECoCash’s CEO as he went on to take aim at her even though she had blocked him.

God is not a fool. When one CEO calls you a wanna bee entrepreneur and a faliure, another calls you and says “You are right!”. As far as online goes, in 6 months we are market leaders and noone else is even close. Also got a call from that CEOs BOSS. Never be afraid to speak up.
— Kuda Musasiwa (@begottensun) May 20, 2019

Calculating the vast amount of charges our little startup paid ecocss today, the CEO will one day have to justify why she called us wannabees & failures. Shes a worker not an owner. She can use her power to compare with her other entrepreneur friends and say who’s more valuable! pic.twitter.com/vWznAelUE8
— Kuda Musasiwa (@begottensun) May 20, 2019

Anyway, should EcoCash be blamed and is it benefiting?

Yes, I agree that EcoCash should probably be blamed for not doing enough to curb this problem of people paying a premium to get cash. I guess they haven’t even tried to come up with ‘whatever’ measures to dissuade the agents from defrauding people besides this kind of warning which they also issued out last year.

Check how Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter and so forth are trying all sorts of things to sanitize their platforms from fake news. WhatsApp went as far as to source for ideas from the public on how it can tackle the disease of fake news. But I’m not seeing this kind of action from EcoCash.

However, the blame is not entirely EcoCash’s. In fact, all the blame lies with the so-called Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) which is mandated to prevent money-related crimes. The organisation is virtually non-existent, judging by what’s happening in the CBD where you see moneychangers holding ‘bricks’ of assorted currencies. Actually, these are the guys to blame for the premiums we are being charged to get cash. If the FIU was fully functioning, I’m so sure that firms like EcoCash would seriously devote the minds and resources to curb the selling of cash by its agents.

All in all, I believe EcoCash has nothing to do with what their agents are doing. It’s merely because electronic money and physical money is not equally valued in Zimbabwe, that we are seeing people (not EcoCash agents only) trading money. The source of this discrepancy can actually be traced back to our unpopular central bank, The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.

If anything, EcoCash has a wider smile on its face when people don’t cash out (money stays in their system) than when they get money out of their financial ecosystem through cashing out. So I would like to think that EcoCash has more motive to stop its agents from pouring out more money out of EcoCash.

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