Social Cash Transfer Programme beneficiaries in Neno District have received mobile phones on loan from Weathnet Finance to improve transition from manual cash payment to electronic payment system.
This follows a decision by Neno District Council to transition from manual cash transfers to electronic payments through Kaku Pay Smart Money platform in May this year.
Speaking on Tuesday during phone distribution, Weathnet Finance human resources and administration manager Tapiwa Banda said they realised that some beneficiaries did not have mobile phones, which are essential for accessing their payments.
“We, therefore, thought of providing phones on loan to willing beneficiaries to enable them receive their money conveniently,” she said.
Banda said each mobile phone
costs K49 590 and beneficiaries will repay the amount in instalments for six months.
She said so far, 2 560 mobile phones have been allocated to beneficiaries that registered for the initiative.
One of the beneficiaries, Lines Jeremani, from Lumbe Village in Traditional Authority Chekucheku, said he did not have a phone.
“Every time our payments were made, I had to borrow a phone and pay K500 as a fee. Sometimes I would find out later that we had been paid because my SIM card was not in any phone,” he said.
Neno district social welfare officer Amos Chandilanga said the initiative will reduce cases of lost SIM cards.
“We had many cases of beneficiaries losing their SIM cards simply because they were kept loosely or kept by other people,” he said.
