Mobile Money Transactions To Be Scrutinised DAILY By Mthuli Ncube Task Force

On launching his Currency Stabilisation Task Force today, the minister of finance touched on mobile money specifically. Mobile money has been a scapegoat when it comes to the runaway inflation and its causative agent: accelerated decline in the value of the local currency.

Ncube proposes to:

Place limits on daily bulk payer transactions.
Bulk payments are such services like Payroll that mobile money operators introduced in the last two years. Would be interesting how the authorities will arrive at the limits seeing that some voluminous transactions like the payment of cotton farmers by Cottco through OneMoney exist.
Ensure compliance with the 2% IMTT on bulk payers.
EcoCash has already started collecting the 2% tax on these transactions. They have been collecting it for about a month now. Again we would want to know how salary payments will be distinguished from other bulk payments seeing that salary payments are supposed to be exempted from the 2% tax.

We find it interesting that Ncube seems to view the 2% tax as a punitive measure or an instrument to curb parallel market activity.

He’s got his eye on mobile money

Mthuli Ncube’s statement has the following paragaph:

Additionally, the daily returns being submitted by the mobile platforms to the Financial Intelligence Unit of the RBZ will be scrutinised very carefully by the Currency Stabilisation Task Force to ensure that all transactions are legitimate and are in accordance with the financial regulations in place.

Well on that, I have no comment. Sadly, all I know is that as long as the government remains as unpredictable as it is, as long as Zimbabweans still need to access forex to pay for basics such as food and medical attention from beyond borders and government documents like passports, all this will not work. The parallel market will keep thriving