Upper West: Bring Mobile Money Vendors to Order[Article]

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I begin my piece of write up with the wise saying ” When the evil plotter beats his drum for the downfall of the innocent, the gods will not let it sound” the time of liberation and emancipation has come and our people will be saved from mobile money slavery.
Mobile money transaction is a form of financial inclusion introduced by the central bank of Ghana in collaboration with the various telecommunication service providers for easy access of financial transaction for everyone. however, mobile money vendors under the various service providers are abusing this opportunity of financial inclusion thereby cheating the public.
Let me take you through some of the official charges issued by the service providers during mobile money transactions. If a customer is depositing any amount to his or her personal account, he or she is not required to pay any charge. if a customer is sending any amount below one hundred Ghana cedis ( Ghc 100) to another person, he or she is required to pay fifty Ghana pesewas (Ghc0.50) and for every hundred Ghana cedis sent to another person, you are required to pay ( Ghc1). If you are sending one thousand cedis (Ghc 1000), your are required to pay ten Ghana cedis(Ghc 10).
However, for a single large transaction, thus sending any amount above one thousand cedis, You will still have to be charged ten Ghana cedis and the rest will be paid by the service provider to the mobile money vendor. it is a directive from the central bank of Ghana as part of efforts to ensuring financial inclusion and the reason is to enable more people to transact using the mobile money. but this is where the mobile money vendors use to cheat the public.
for example, if you are sending five thousand cedis (Ghc5000) to someone, they normally charge customers ten Ghana cedis for every one thousand cedis and in total, you will have to pay fifty cedis before your transaction could go through which is a total cheat. in this case, you are required to pay ten Ghana cedis to the vendor and the other four thousand cedis transaction cost will be paid to the customer by the service provider he or she is operating under.
Also, for a seperate transactions, You are required to pay the cost of any amount sent thus if you are sending five thousand cedis to five different people with which each is supposed to receive one thousand, you will have to pay ten Ghana cedis each and in total, you will have to pay fifty cedis for all the transactions but in a case where all monies are to be sent to one person, you are supposed to pay not more than ten Ghana cedis for the transaction.
These mobile money vendors charge the public abnormal fees and are still paid by the service providers they are operating under. Isn’t it a Cheat? Absolutely Yes.
Anyone sending money above one thousand cedis should pay ten Ghana cedis and insist on not paying the rest and if they refuse to transact for you, You can gentle go and report to the network provider. it will be recall that, some mobile money vendors were arrested for charging wrong fees and their business SIM cards terminated, sending them out of the business.
In Conclusion,

The public do not have the right information as far as mobile money transaction is concern so therefore, are ignorant of the charges relative to mobile money transaction thereby leading to them being cheated anytime they are to do mobile money transactions. the central bank of Ghana and the service providers do not put strict measures that will prevent mobile money vendors from cheating the public. there is information and communication gap in the mobile money transaction business between the public, mobile money vendors and the network service providers leading to vendors cheating the public. isn’t it mobile money slavery?

I therfore, recommend that,

1) The network service providers should send messages of directive on the charges associated to mobile money transactions to every service user so that they will become aware of the charges so as not to be cheated by these vendors.

2) The network service providers should also orientate and serve mobile money vendors with messages of caution on the dangers associated with charging wrong fees.

3) The central bank of Ghana should as a matter of urgency come out to educate the public on financial inclusion relative to mobile money transactions.





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