The Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications, Kenneth Ashigbey, says key stakeholders in the mobile money space are continuously collaborating and sharing information to effectively bring an end to the rising armed robbery attacks on mobile money vendors.

Over the past couple of months and weeks, separate robbery incidents have been recorded on mobile money vendors in different parts of the country, with some leading to death and serious injuries.

Speaking to Citi Business News, Mr. Ashigbey said apart from educating vendors and merchants on ways to protect themselves, members of the chamber in collaboration with the Bank of Ghana are developing an agent registry to assist with identifying vendors in the system.
“When it comes to issues of security, it’s a shared challenge. It’s not something that is specific to only one of the operators, so we collaborate to ensure that the new ways by which these criminals go about their activities are known to us, to ensure that we effectively combat their activities. And it’s not only just what happens in our country you know, because our members also operate in other countries as well, so we take learning from other places and bring them also to our markets as well.”

“Then also constant education of the operators within the space on effective security and insurance are things we are doing. And then another thing that has also been happening is working with the Bank of Ghana on some agent registry. Once that is completed, it will help us to be able to ensure that we know where who is. All of that is part of the process that we’re taking to ensure the safety of these merchants and vendors,” he added.

Eastern police on manhunt for gunmen who shot and killed MoMo vendor
The Eastern Regional Police Command is on a manhunt for a gunman who shot and killed a Mobile Money agent at Okorase near Koforidua, on Saturday 19th June 2021.

36-year-old Solomon Arhin, who was also a teacher at Behenase R/C Basic School in Tinkong, was shot on his way home after locking his shop.

The police, who have begun investigations, are suspecting a case of contract killing as all valuables belonging to the deceased were still by him at the time police got to the scene.