Mobile money booth operators in Lusaka are fearing for their lives following the alleged abduction of a 22-year-old woman of Lusaka by unknown people who are demanding a ransom from her family.
Julius Phiri, a mobile money operator, told ZANIS in an interview that most mobile money booth operators are working in fear because of what happened to their colleague.
Mr. Phiri who described the incident as un-Zambian said there is need for the police to curb occurrences of such nature before they escalate in the city.
“The police need to ensure that criminalities of this nature are checked because they are a time bomb,” he said.
He added that mobile money operators handle a lot of money without any form of security making it easy for criminals to take advantage of their vulnerability.
” Is it sad that despite trying to create employment for ourselves, we are not getting support in terms of security from the police.” He said.
Meanwhile, some business operators in the central business district have described the abduction of Pamela Chisumpa as sad saying that mobile money booth operators are helping ease access to basic digital financial services.
Victor Hambulo said with the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic the Mobile money booth operators made life quite easy especially with the long queues that characterized banks.
“We usually withdraw money through POS, make deposits, pay electricity and other things and we don’t want these banking activities affected especially in areas without banks and ATM machines,” he said.
He added that this has eased financial transactions, enhanced a cashless economy and improved financial inclusion adding that this will be under threat if lives of operators’ risk threats from criminals.
Mr. Hambulo has called on the government to quickly tighten up security in the country, adding that there is too much criminality going on.
Pamela Chisumpa, a mobile money operator of Makeni was abducted by two unknown men who pretended to be seeking money truncations with her.
This happened last week on Wednesday according to police
paipa pano..
NGOs championing women’s rights are only good at commenting on political appointments. They’re quiet over the kidnapped lady
They blame the police? While these mobile money booths don’t have any security provisions? Not even a simple safe? I’m surprised that we haven’t seen any more crimes like this.