That’s how transactions are lost in Uganda. This isn’t the first time am encountering such scenarios where a vendor dismisses me or denies me a product or service on the grounds that they “don’t have change”. I’ve heard some other people have similar experiences. Now imagine how much money small businesses lose just because someone shows up with a “big” note and they “don’t have change” to give back the customer’s balance. It’s a lot of money, that would otherwise be earned by small business owners.
While big business owners cheat on their customers
It’s not just small business owners who own mid-size shops, but also big super markets. I often get shocked when the cashiers tells me they don’t have 100 UgShs to return to me again because “they don’t have change”. This time,it’s not the super market losing business, rather, it’s me losing money and the super markets cheating on me. Well, for a heavy single shopper, 100 UgShs may not mean much. But suppose they’re 1,000 other such cases where the super market withholds 100 UgShs on grounds that “they don’t have change”, that’s 100,000 UgShs. See, now am sure you’re raising your eyebrows.
But the real loser is you and me
When I failed to get airtime from Mama Frank’s shop next door, I had to move another 1 Km to find someone who both had airtime and change to return to me! That costed me time and energy that I would have invested in doing something a lot more productive. On the other hand, if I sat down to calculate cumulatively how much money I’ve lost to a merchant just because at that time I thought it was small compared to the inconvenience I would go through to wait for it, it would approximately be 5,000UgShs/month which is 60,000UgShs/year — as a single individual.
So what next?
As a technologist, am absolutely disturbed when I see recurring problems in our society when there are solutions for them. Why should Mama Frank continue to lose business and fail to take her children to school simply because she doesn’t have loose cash around to give to her customers as change? What if Mama Frank had a means of allowing some sort of electronic payments and i also had a means of paying her the exact amount for her goods/services without the need for change? I know, you are already thinking mobile money! Wrong. Up to now, neither the banks nor the Telecoms have working systems with merchants like Mama Frank to enable seamless electronic transactions at the merchants’ points of sale. For instance last week, TechPost Enterprise Technology editor, Bright Onapito reviewed Orange’s Mobile money service to which he said; Image: foreignpolicyblogs.com
