“Swipe your bananas,” Mthuli said.

Ah, these educated people in suits, they sit in air-conditioned offices and think they are clever. Now they say every vendor in the informal sector must have a point of sale machine. A POS, imagine! Swipe for tomatoes. Tap card for bananas. Pin number for roasted maize by the roadside. Eeee, zvimwe zvinoshamisa izvi!

Let me ask: who is going to start that machine? In the village, we already know electricity is like a visitor—it comes when it wants and leaves without saying goodbye. In town, it’s not much different. ZESA yacho yave nereputation worse than a drunk uncle at a wedding. So which vendor has time to charge batteries, buy data bundles, and wait for the network that goes on lunch break at exactly the same time as you need it?

And even if, by some miracle, the machine is charged, what happens when someone buys a 50-cent tomato? The transaction fee is a whole dollar! That’s like paying lobola with one goat and being charged two goats just for delivery.

And anyway, since the informal market is all about dhora rako, who is going to ring up the till just to pay Mthuli? The musika women will just continue to take their cash and stash it in places we don’t want to think too much about while leaving the POS machines to gather dust.

You see, this is not the first time our clever leaders have tried to “formalize the informal.” They once tried licensing blitzes—vendors scattered like guinea fowl when the kombi backfired. They built “designated vending zones” that no one wanted, because customers don’t shop where the government says; they shop where life happens.

And now, the latest chapter: the new Mbare Musika, built after the fire. Even here under the Musasa tree we have heard that it’s all beautiful stalls, expensive rentals, and guess what? Empty. Vendors said, “Hameno, we’re fine outside in the dust.”

So, if people are refusing to occupy actual markets, who exactly will line up for a POS machine? Maybe they will hand them out like airtime scratch cards on street corners.

It reminds me of the village head who once bought a wheelbarrow too fancy to carry manure. He polished it and told us we should admire it. Meanwhile, we continued carrying loads on our heads. That’s what these policies look like: beautiful shiny wheelbarrows divorced from the reality of the grind and hustle.

Yes, taxes are needed. Government must collect money to fix roads, pay teachers, and stop hospitals from becoming waiting rooms for angels. But before you tax people, give them sanity.

Vendors need proper, affordable stalls. They need toilets that work, water that runs, and rubbish that’s collected. Right now, informal traders ndivo vane yese. Cash yakati tii ikoko. But these POS policies will not get into Mthuli’s pockets. Never!

If you want compliance, make the system worth complying with. Otherwise, it’s just another item on the long list of “educated nonsense.” Because let’s be honest, who’s going to swipe a card for maputi by the roadside?

I am not a doomsday believer, but this push for POS machines may end up like many policies before: nice speeches, fine laws, but on the ground, life just goes on. People will still use cash, still trade from pavements, and still laugh at the clever people in suits.

As for me, I’m just a goat under a tree, watching it all, chewing the cud, and thinking: Musatifendere imi! Swipe for tomatoes? Tap for bananas? Maybe next we’ll have “contactless sadza”; just wave your card and a plate appears. Until then, leave the vendors alone and fix the real problems first.

Ndini Mbudzi, the ungovernable AI-generated goat who has lived too long to ever stop seeing the funny side of life.