Biti describes retail players as errant, noisy

The retail sector has also been blamed for failing to accept coins to transact businesses preferring to round off purchases to avoid giving out change.
Addressing delegates at a prebudget meeting in Harare this afternoon, Minister Biti said this development has forced him to convene a crucial meeting with the Retailers Association of Zimbabwe to iron out these issues  in what is expected to be a stormy meeting.

“I am going to meet RAZ soon concerning fiscalised tax registers, and other issues.
“They are dragging their feet on this initiative which brings transparency into the economy. They are making a lot of noise and yet they are the most errant,” said Minister Biti.
An electronic tax register is a cash register with fiscal memory. Fiscal memory is a special read only memory built into the cash register to store tax information at the time of sale.
The implementation of the fiscalised tax registers and fiscal memory devices is expected to result in a more accountable national tax collection system, which will boost State coffers for critical development projects.
Two companies, Axis Solutions and First Computers are providing hardware and software for the implementation of the fiscalised tax system.

There has been some concerns from retailers with respect to the feasibility of the implementation date of October 1, which was however moved to January 1 next year.
Retailers had also raised concerns on capital costs involved in the implementation process, the price of the fiscalised tax registers and fiscal memory devices, and limited public awareness programs.
Smallto medium scale enterprises indicated they would not be able to bear the costs of adopting fiscalised tax registers, particularly in view of liquidity challenges prevailing in the market.
Fiscalised tax gadgets for the mobile handheld type have a value range of between US$300 to US$400, while the midrange gadgets can cost between US$400 to US$500, while the larger system ranges from US$2 000.

RAZ president, Mr Denford Mberi said his association has written to the Ministry of Industry and Commerce and they can only make a public statement after receiving correspondents from the parent ministry.
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor Dr Gideon Gono confirmed that there is more than R9 million worth of coins in the banking system and retailers have refused to take up the coins.
Minister Biti added that this behavior will force Government to come up with a statutory instrument to bring back normalcy into the sector, that is also failing to display prevailing exchange rates.

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