Operate in open and safe locations – Police caution MoMo agents

• 

The Police Administration has advised Mobile Money (MoMo) Agents across the country to be extremely careful with their security and not set up at isolated places in order not to place themselves and their customers at risk of being attacked.

“Basically, everybody must be security conscious but for the Mobile Money Vendor, there are some things we can do to limit the risk of being attacked. First of all, where you even set up your business is very important. It must be at a secure premise,” the Director of Public Affairs of the Ghana Police Service, Supt. Sheilla Kessie Abayie-Buckman said on Starr FM.

Several Mobile Money agents have been the target of arm-robbery incidents in the country in recent times. Last week, heavily armed men attacked an agent at Bantama in the Ashanti Region and made away with over GHC200,000.

Over the weekend another agent was robbed at Klagon in Accra in broad daylight with an estimated sum of 2,000 cedis stolen. There are several reports and unreported cases of agents who have been attacked with some sustaining gunshot wounds or losing their lives in the process.

In the wake of these incidents, the Police Public Relations Officer advised MoMo agents not to disclose the amount of money on them, when serving customers.

“For instance, if someone comes to you and wants to withdraw one thousand and you have no idea who the person is. You should be careful and in fact, you can decide to tell the person that your entire capital is not up to that amount,” Madam Abayei-Buckman stated.

She continued: “Because from previous cases that we have been investigated, we have noticed that sometimes they just come to ask questions to know how much money you have on you or you may have on your phone. So it is important that Mobile Money Venders get to know their customers,”.

The Police PRO further said MoMo agents can install CCTV cameras which can help to record activities that go on around them.

“It is important that Mobile Money Venders set up their business in a way to keep a distance so that customers would not see what the agents do, see their drawers or where they keep their money in. So they don’t easily determine if the agent has money or not,” she added.