Saada Salum, Deputy Finance minister

Proliferation of cash transactions has been cited as one of the causes of the fast deterioration of the new banknotes.

The observation was made by Deputy Finance minister Saada Salum in the National Assembly when responding to Micheweni legislator, Haji Kai who had wished to know why the country’s banknotes deteriorate within a short period when compared to the previous issue.

She said the deterioration of the notes resulted from improper use of by Tanzanians especially business people, urging them to use other means of transactions such as mobile phone money and banking system.

Meanwhile the Bank of Tanzania (BoT) plans to introduce a national switch that can enable customers from different banks to use any Automated Teller Machine (ATM) to access banking services in the country, the deputy minister has said.

She disclosed this in the National Assembly when responding to the basic question from special seat MP, Bahati Abeid (CCM).

The MP had wanted the government to explain actions being taken against banks found to be using defective ATMs.

In response, the deputy minister said BoT has experts who annually inspect payment systems in the country including ATMs to review their effectiveness in accordance with proposed international standards.

According to the deputy minister BoT has been carrying out such banking examination and evaluation in zones.

She said despite most ATMs being of high standard, there were some shortfalls of configuration nature which made some of them fail to operate efficiently, especially after BoT issued the new bank notes.

“The Ministry through the BoT has instructed all Banks to put mechanisms in place to help their customers when they face emergencies….when you attend an ATM you will find mobile phone numbers to call as soon as you notice an emergency,” she said.

Salum said BoT was preparing a mechanism “national switch” to link all ATM users to access ATM banking services using any of the machines available without restrictions