At one time in the past the taxi fare in Addis Ababa was 95 cents. Commuters give one birr to the conductor but do not expect him to return five cents change back. The problem is the passengers ignore the value of that small coin, five cents and do not ask him at all, or even the conductor may mostly give a polite reply that he does not have five cents to give back. So the passengers simply understand and ignore.
While the passenger and conductors harmony is good, it is worth noting the wastage every day as passengers use the taxi every day. For instance in Addis Ababa alone more than 50 000 mini bus and buses move the whole day commuting millions of passengers to and from work, schools … etc. The passengers waste an unnecessary amount of seconds or minutes while try to pay the transportation fare, receiving change and ticket etc.
More over if the taxi conductor or cashier does not have small coins or change, the only thing the passenger is likely to do is just to sympathize and forced to blame himself for not having always carried a change. During such rush hours they worry more about getting the bus or taxi and arriving to their work, school or any important destination. In a year or two they are wasting a lot of money and seconds. Such things also happen in many of the transactions.
One can mention many instances for the problem of market exchange through cash or paper money. But nothing can be more exemplary than the taxi industry and few of the market places in many parts of the country. For example currently the mini bus and midi bus taxi are the most widely used means of transportation in Addis Ababa and many of the other big cities of the country.
Adding up all these small coins and seconds that flow out of the peoples pocket due to lack of system to avoid, it will make up wastage of millions of money annually. Moreover the circulation of the cash in each and every such transaction every day and every minute in the hands of people causes a lot of damage to the paper notes. As a result many of the currency’s, even those that currently came to effect, are seen being highly emaciated and becoming almost out of service even in less than six months since being in service.
Considering the planned life span of the currency notes it is easy to imagine the amount of damage they will sustain in the years to come if they continue to be handled in the same way. This being one reason it is advisable if the government seeks other solutions to replace the continuous use and circulation of cash in the market.
Encouraging digital payment methods comes handier in this regard. Currently many banks apply one of the digital payment methods like mobile money. Yet many people do not know how to apply this in their daily payments like shopping, transportations … etc. As a result they still stick to the traditional means of payment and transaction whether they liked it or not.
Hence the government needs to come up with means of encouraging digital payment methods as they are likely to bring about a lot of benefits to the economy.
As many things in Ethiopia are being transformed in to modern and safe forms, it is also important to put in place a financial and payment system that gets along with it. For instance many people need to embark up on modern system of cash so as to avoid carrying hundreds of birr in their wallet or pocket while moving here and there. This is because it exposes them for incidents like robbery fraud. .. etc.
Millions of people keeping their cash in their wallets for such daily and frequent shopping means a large sum of money circulate out of the bank. But if majority of these people have simpler means of making digital money transaction, no one doubts the value in addition to ensuring safety of the currency. More over the government will also be able to have approximate estimate about the actual revenue of some private business who pay taxes based on estimated daily income.
Actually there are many constraints that could be raised as hampering the progress of the introduction of digital payment like mobile pay, online payment. One such constraint it people awareness on the relative advantage of the payment system. Yet it is more likely to get the attention of the public once it is wide spread and many people become actual witnesses to the positive sides. Hence the government should take no time to enforce the wide application of digital payment in many of the busy transactions like big markets, transportation systmems etc.
The Ethiopian herald February 19/2021
