Ministry of Industry and Trade accused of ‘killing’ industry through neglecting online payment platform

Harare- THE Ministry of Industry and Trade is accused of slowly pushing importers and businesses with stake in mining , hardware and so forth to go back into informal trading through not upgrading their online platforms,Express Mail Zim can report.

This comes amid reports that the their online platform called ZimConnect (which is basically a State e- services platform) has been offline for the past two weeks making it difficult for importers and other businesses including farmers and miners to make payments and secure permits.

“Our trucks have been stuck at the border because we can’t make payments as the system is always offline especially for the past two weeks,” said an affected business owner who spoke to Express Mail Zim.

Speculative reports suggest that the disruption on the service is due to non-payment by the ministry in question since other departments using the same system do not have glitches.

Prior to this e-government initiative introduced by the ICT Ministrt, up tocompany registration in Zimbabwe or applying for requisite licences to carry out business in various industries like mining or farming was a major hurdle .

However, with this seemingly deliberate ‘choking’ of the online platform is not recommended for industry growth.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa has always reiterated that Zimbabwe is Open for Business and it is clear when one looks at the major infrastructural developments made by the Second Republic

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Minister Sekai Nzenza and her permanent secretary could not be reached for comment at the time of writing.