Talking to an emotional distributor who recently found out that the company had blocked any new sales at the beginning of the month he said."People might be saying that the sanctions are not there but this is actually a result of sanctions and now it's affecting even the ordinary citizens and the local businesses like mine are suffering because now I don't have a job."
Information at hand also shows that while existing customers are still in Sage's system, their future with the platform is uncertain.
This abrupt development leaves a lot of distributors out of business soon, a huge price for Zimbabwe's economic malaise. Sanctions, according to distributors, are also affecting even local financial services and payment systems.
In an interview with the Standard, Econet Boss Strive Masiyiwa mentioned that just this year, Zimbabwe's money transfer agencies started facing problems in meeting their customer obligations owing to the termination of correspondent-bank arrangements between local banks and international financial institutions.
It is alleged that before the recent developments it used to take just a day for one to be verified and be able to use the system but now their vetting process is more strict.
It is now taking between a week to even two months. If you are dealing with the government or certain big wigs who have been blacklisted and are in the sanctions list then you are definitely going to be blocked or your license not renewed. What the future holds is definitely uncertain.