Zimbabweans Not Accepting Rand, Yuan Use

Published: 2016 August 03 03:09:01 (5415 Views)

Use of the South African Rand ans Chinese Yuan have been frustrated as some retailers and individuals at banks are refusing to accept the currencies as legal tender.

Few local supermarkets including N. Richards and OK Zimbabwe supermarkets have embraced the rand and are also using Point of Sale machines to make transactions easier.The supermarkets have displayed the exchange rates for the benefit of customers.

Harare City Council is also accepting the rand from ratepayers but only through the bank.

HCC acting corporate communications manager Michael Chideme said residents could deposit their rand or Chinese yuan into the city’s bank account.

Some shops, especially those selling clothes, were however refusing to accept the rand.

Most Indian and Chinese shops have also not embraced the rand while others still do not have PoS machines, suggesting that most of them were not banking their sales proceeds.

At the tobacco auction floors, some banks are offering the rand but few farmers are accepting the currency as they do not have confidence in it while some said they were put off by the fluctuating exchange rate.

Other farmers said they were not aware of the official rate and feared they could fall prey to unscrupulous business people.

On the other hand, traders in the informal sector are refusing to accept the rand as they are afraid to hold on to a currency that was likely to lose value in a short period.

Some service stations were offering a lower rate for the rand but using the PoS machines. Others were offering as little as $5, equivalent to R100.

Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce chief executive Takunda Mugaga said it was difficult to have a currency competing with the US dollar at the moment.

“The US dollar is not only a credit currency, but is also being taken as a reserve currency. The US dollar strengthens when other currencies are going down. Thus the demand for the US dollar is normal,” he said.

Ironically in June, bankers and industry recommended the adoption of the South African rand as the major transacting currency to reduce concentration of risk associated with heavy reliance on the US dollar which currently accounts for 95 percent of all transactions.

Bankers said the adoption of the rand would be one of the measures needed to address the cash challenges the country is facing.

- Herald

Tags: Yuan, rand, dollar, Zimbabwe, ,

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