No need for bank queues: Mangudya
ZIMBABWE has made significant strides in the elimination of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (EMTCT), with the country edging close to attaining World Health Organisation (WHO) validation on the same, an official has revealed.
Cuba was the first country to receive WHO validation on EMTCT in 2015. The WHO validation criteria include the 95-95-95 Global Plan targets to end mother-to-child transmission of HIV (MTCT) by 2030. Under the global targets countries should ensure that more than 95 percent of pregnant women, both who know and do not know their HIV status, receive at least one antenatal visit. More than 95 percent of pregnant women should know their HIV status and more than 95 percent of HIV-positive pregnant women must receive antiretroviral drugs, by 2030.
Another target of the Global Plan is to reduce RESERVE Bank of Zimbabwe governor Dr John Mangudya has urged Zimbabweans especially Government workers to desist from the culture of visiting banking halls to withdraw their salaries in cash as their employer does not deposit hard currency in the banks for them.
Speaking at the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Zimbabwe (ICAZ) Winter School yesterday, Dr Mangudya said Finance and Economic Development Minister Patrick Chinamasa makes civil servants salaries transactions using Real Time Gross Settlement ( RTGS) hence people should not expect to get cash from banks.
Dr Mangudya challenged civil servants to embrace technology and use digital transaction platforms than to blame banks if they fail to get cash.
“Let’s have a digitalised c a s h economy, this is what they are doing in USA. Your mobile network operators should come up with products that you can present to the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare for use in paying civil servants and pensioners. “The Finance Minister deposits RTGS in banks and not cash but we have people queuing wanting to withdraw cash which was never deposited there in the first place. That’s a disconnect and if you don’t want to go digital or use plastic money, then go and queue at the bank but there is no need for that,” said Dr Mangudya. He was giving an update on the prevailing monetary situation in the country, where he said the country was generally in the right direction. The RBZ governor called for strategies for formalising the informal sector where the country is running a dual economy with money “going from the formal into the informal sector and never coming back.” Participants who were drawn from chartered accounting firms around the country queried the cost of mobile money transactions which they said were too exorbitant hence discouraging mobile money transactions.