‘E-commerce mustn’t be a novelty’

ZIMBABWE is making strides towards ensuring that its citizens enjoy the benefits of digital economic transformation, Information, Communication Technology (ICT), Postal and Courier Services Minister, Dr Jenfan Muswere, has said.

Apart from enhancing the ease of doing business and cutting on operational costs, Minister Muswere said digitisation should alleviate the transacting challenges associated with manual purchases and demand for hard cash.

His sentiments come at a time when many people still prefer using manual business processes as evidenced by continued long queues at banking halls and utility service provider’s offices.

In his remarks at the recent Computer Society of Zimbabwe 2021 Summit, Dr Muswere urged businesses and public entities to scale up adoption of electronic (e)-commerce platforms.

“The economy has experienced a lot of challenges in addressing issues pertaining to the payment platforms.
E-commerce must move away from being a novelty to practical implementation,” he said.

“As we march forward with the aspirations of the National Development Strategy 1 (NDS1:2021-2025) let us have a national payments platform that does not rely on cash (physical notes) but a digital Zimbabwe dollar. “This platform must fully integrate mobile money and bank wallets so that our economy can easily transact and generate meaningful transaction volumes,” said Dr Muswere.

Going forward, Minister Muswere said Government expects a positive outlook in the next 12 months as the ICT sector focuses on innovation, increased collaboration and addressing the issues of the underlying technology gaps, systems up time and most importantly interoperability.

Given its high impact on businesses, Dr Muswere said the ICT sector would promote development across the economy.
“ICT is the cornerstone of propelling development initiatives across all divides of the economy and society. I alluded to the fact that we envisage a Zimbabwean digital Government, leading to a digital economy, in an increasingly digital society,” he said. – The Chronicle