Africa-Press – Uganda. Private security companies are seeking to partner with mobile money agents in response to a surge in deadly attacks by armed robbers targeting dealers in the business.
This, even as criminals overnight July 22 shot and killed mobile money business owner Lawrence Rutasera and his house help Rashid Ssenyondo in an over Shs80million heist in Kyengera Town Council in central Uganda.
On Saturday, Regina Nabunje who is the corporate affairs manager at SGA, a private security firm, said that they have been prioritizing major financial institutions like banks and credit service providers leaving out mobile money dealers or agents at the risk of being harmed by criminals.
“Mobile money agents have now become the new target of robbers and that is why SGA is now scaling a program to partner with them to ensure that they can also get a secure way of transporting their cash to the banks or any other desired destination,” she said in Kampala.
To curb a growing trend of crime, Nabunje urged Mobile Money agents to avoid carrying huge sums of money since the robbers are targeting agents suspected to have what she described as “a lot of cash.”
“A mobile money agent does not need to keep with him a lot of cash (money). Instead, this agent can partner with a security company so that money can be delivered to him or her at any time instead of risking lives,” she noted while launching a fleet of over 10 cash in transit vehicles.
“We have been concentrating on bigger financial institutions because we didn’t have capacity but with the new fleet of vehicles, we can serve any one in need of our services on time,” she emphasized.
Robbery and theft remain among the highest-ranking crimes in Uganda in recent years.
According to last year’s police crime report, a total of 6, 936 cases of mobile phone thefts were reported compared to 4, 143 cases in 2021.
In the same report, 279 cases of murder by shooting were recorded, a decrease of 24 cases compared to those registered in 2021, while a total of 296 persons were shot dead in 2022.
Still on Saturday, Kampala metropolitan police spokesperson Patrick Onyango urged masses to always move with “small cash to avoid attracting criminals.”
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