ZAMBIA – SCORES of young Zambians in the nation’s capital Lusaka escaped the confinement of their Mobile Money booths and headed to Central Police Station to demand for better security and recovery of their two colleagues who were abducted for ransom by unknown criminals.
Mobile money platforms by the country’s three mobile network providers have replaced traditional banking and are seen by many as more convenient than banks for deposits and withdraws, and consequently generate huge profits for the phone companies.
However, despite generating these huge profits for phone companies, the youths at the end of the food chain who are mostly mere school leavers, operate from tiny and extremely hot corrugated iron containers commonly known as “booths” with no amenities such as toilets or security in what some view as an example of modern slavery by capitalistic corporations.
And its this lack of security following abductions for ransom of their colleagues by thugs that has them up in arms.
The operators who were drawn mostly from the nation’s main road of Cairo were however dispersed by baton-wielding police without assurance of a hot pursuit of their colleagues’ abductors.
And the vendors spoken to who chose anonymity told #Kalemba that they were now forced to close their iron boxes posing as mobile banking stations at 3pm daily to avoid being snatched by the new wave of abductors which has further sliced their already meagre earnings.
All the two victims so far abducted are young females in their early 20s.
Kalemba April 21, 2022
