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Minister Chinamasa

Government is mobilising funds to import more Point of Sale (POS) machines to promote the use of plastic money countrywide, a Cabinet Minister has said.Zimbabwe, which is using the United States dollar as its chief currency, is battling cash shortages that have been triggered by a number of issues, among them high imports and externalisation.

To mitigate the cash shortages, the government has introduced a raft of measures including cash withdrawal limits and bond notes, a medium of exchange equivalent in value to the greenback.

The Government has also been promoting the use of plastic money, but this has been quite challenging because of the uneven distribution of POS machines across the country. And, responding to sentiments that more POS machines should be deployed across the country to ensure the spread of plastic money use, Finance and Economic Development Minister Patrick Chinamasa said efforts were being made to bring in more machines.

“We do not have sufficient POS machines for every part of the country. These have to imported, but resources are being mobilised to ensure that we distribute more POS machines,” he said recently.

Minister Chinamasa said Treasury had also engaged the Ministry of Information Communication Technology to deal with connectivity problems that sometimes affect POS transactions.

Last week, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe released $15 million worth of $5 bond notes into the market, bringing the total figure released in bond notes so far to $88 million. The bond notes have gone some way in easing the cash shortages and clearing queues that had become the order of the day at most banks. — New Ziana.