The Association of Bureaux De Change of Zambia (ABCZ) has called on President Hakainde Hichilema and his newly constituted government to work on reducing the number and cost of licenses needed for a business to run in order to reduce the cost of doing business.
And the Association has disclosed that high licensing fees by the Bank of Zambia (BoZ) has deterred many bureaus and local businesses from starting and expanding their branch networks in the country, which has slowed down the spread of financial services and inclusion.
In an interview with the Zambian Business Times – ZBT, ABCZ President Paul Kalumba noted that there were too many licenses in the country for a business, which make businesses inefficient and expensive to run.
He disclosed that bureaus pay more than K79, 000 to the central bank for software license whenever they want to open a new branch a situation that has deterred many bureaus from expanding their branch networks. Imagine how many more branches can open if this fee is scrapped off.
“Bureaus pay more than almost K79, 000 to BoZ for software license whenever they open a new branch. This high license fee has deterred bureaus from expanding their branch networks.
“Actually we are not supposed to pay anything because this system belongs to BoZ, who uses it to monitor the bureau activities in realtime. This system is like the Zambia Revenue Authority’s online system, the public do not pay to use it, same with the NAPSA system or any other system of public interest. ,” Kalumba said.
He stated that currently, bureaus pay the cost of BoZ to monitor bureaus adding that this is a matter of public interest and should therefore, be funded by public funds just like the ZRA or any regulatory online system.
Kalumba explained that this money is supposed to be paid by BoZ as a software charge by their provider but the Central Bank passes the charge to the bureaus. “Its a software license charge. BoZ is charged by the provider of the system and they pass that charge to bureaus. Ideally, it should be their charge because the system is for BoZ to monitor Bureaus,” he said.
Kalumba said, “We have too many licenses in Zambia for a business, even for a business like ours, (Golden Coin Bureau De Change) that does not sell food, it has to pay fire permits, health permits, we have to pay for trading license, at times we have as many as 15 licenses in a business.
He said there is need for the new government to come up with a policy that will allow a business to only apply one license and be able to operate freely. “We expect that the new government will have a policy where you pay one license and your business is free to do business. Its policies like that make businesses efficient and cheaper,” Kalumba said.
He said looking at the fact that the President is a businessperson himself, it is expected that Zambia will see policies that are pro-business and those that will help the businesses to flourish. Kalumba said for the bureau sector, which largely depends on other sectors, the effects of Covid-19 than policy currently affects it.
Kalumba said that the new government should focus on solving this problem by putting in place measures such as having more people vaccinated and ensuring that borders are open to trade.
“The bureau sector’s primary purpose is to serve the travelling public, cross border traders, and the current environment is impacted more by covid-19 than policy. Therefore, it is solving these other problems like getting more people vaccinated and opening borders for our people going to trade, that answers the success or failure of the bureau sector. Our sector heavily depends on other sectors being operational,” Kalumba said.
