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New Bank of Zambia currency regulations

15 June 2012 09:57:44 +0000

On 12 June we learnt of The Bank of Zambia (Currency) Regulations, 2012, that were apparently passed on 7 May, came into effect on 18 May, and were posted on the BOZ website on 7 June. Despite the fact that our US dollar-based invoices have always included, according to previous law, a kwacha value (the other option on a foreign currency-based invoice is [or was] to include a conversion rate), it appears now that the mere mention of a foreign currency is illegal, and punishable by significant fines and/or jail terms.

Although NinerNet has clients in quite a number of countries around the world, in Zambia we operate through a locally-registered, turnover tax company named (believe it or not) “NinerNet Communications“. (Doing so significantly improves our ability to operate competitively in Zambia, and we have always been quick to point out to prospective Zambian clients that our invoices can be settled locally in kwachas.) As a result, our business in Zambia must be considered domestic, and so we are subject to this new law.

Unfortunately this news arrived too late for us to reconfigure and re-program our invoicing system in time for June’s invoicing. Therefore we will be adding prominent notices to our June invoice emails and the invoices themselves which indicate that, despite the presence of dollar amounts on the invoice, we “demand to be paid” in kwachas in accordance with section 4 of the new Regulations. To be clear, to comply with this law we can no longer accept payment in US dollars (or any other foreign currency) on “domestic transactions” in Zambia. In fact, we will be closing our dollar account in July.

By 1 July we will be issuing invoices denominated in kwachas only. We’ll also be adding a rates page for kwachas to our website, rather than simply referring clients to the US dollar rates. We’ll send a follow-up email to advise you of the new, fixed rates when they’re published. We have not finalised these yet, but we anticipate basing the new rates on an even exchange rate that hedges slightly against future variations. This will result in a price increase of about 87¢ … oops, I mean K4500 per month for those clients on our most popular hosting plan, with the benefit being that your invoice won’t fluctuate from month to month.

I welcome your feedback on this issue. The commenting system on this blog is not working (yet!), so please contact me through the contact form on the NinerNet website to let me have your thoughts. Thanks.

Craig

A sweet testimonial

15 June 2012 06:31:58 +0000

It’s not every day that we receive a testimonial on paper … in the post … in a box! In fact, I think we’ve had two on cards in the sixteen years we’ve been in business (this one included) in addition to the many that adorn our website that we receive via email. And with the card in the box was, not a body part or a bomb, but a jar of home-made, organic orange-kumquat marmalade. I wonder how many jars of home-made marmalade, sent with appreciation for “amazing tech support”, they receive at MegaCrazyHost? Hmm.

Thank-you to Zsuzsi and John (the “Two Gingers”) at GingerMedia for their very kind (and tasty!) gesture. Zsuzsi and John do web design. You should hire them.

 

Card from GingerMedia.

Card from GingerMedia

Tasty organic orange-kumquat marmalade.

Tasty organic orange-kumquat marmalade

Domain block removed

11 June 2012 10:53:57 +0000

The following four domains that were blocked a couple of weeks ago have been unblocked after liaising with the company involved:

  • cfcsprl.com
  • congofret.com
  • impala-wl.com
  • trafigura.com

Thanks for your patience while we worked to resolve this issue.

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This is the corporate blog of NinerNet Communications. It's where we post announcements, inform and educate our clients, and discuss issues related to the Internet (web and email) hosting business and all it entails. This includes concomitant industries and activities such as domain registration, SSL/TLS certificates, online back-up, virtual private servers (VPS), cloud hosting, etc. Please visit our main website for more information about us.

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