Many to go jobless as Tiko Council embarks on dismantling Mobile Money Kiosks after 150,000 FCFA tax increase

Mobile Money operators in Tiko are lamenting after local council authorities embarked on an operation, destroying their kiosks.

The officials were seen destroying kiosks at Tiko Roundabout on Sunday, April 9, 2023 — with some captured on camera.

Reports say the move comes after the Tiko Council increased the taxes of Mobile Money Operators to a whooping 150,000frs annually.

“This is Tiko roundabout. The Council is destroying all mobile money kiosks. No more Mobile Money (Momo) Everything is down,” our source told us.

Mobile Money Operators say the amount demanded by the council is too high making it difficult for them to raise that money.

“For some time now, we were being given quit notice,” a Mobile Money Operator told MMI saying: ” We were paying 50,000frs as taxes.”

She said the council decided to start increasing the amount which now stands at a hundred and fifty thousand.

“They started by increasing it to 75,000 which later went up to 100,000 and now 150,000frs,” she lamented.

“Where do they expect us to raise that amount of money,” she wondered adding that: “some of us operate with a capital of less than 500,000 while others merely do sim card registration.”

Well established businesses in Tiko, MMI gathered do not pay up to that amount making, Mobile Money Operators to describe it a witch hunt.

Their situation is further complicated by the non-payment of their benefits by mobile telephone companies.

“MTN for example has given us tax payer’s cards but they are not paying our benefits,” the Mobile money operator went on stating that, “MTN is always telling us that they are paying huge taxes to the government.”

The move of the council is likely to render many young people jobless in the municipality.

A majority of them are unemployed university graduates who have decided to keep busy.

“We left university without jobs.This action is indirectly sending us to the streets and when we start committing crime, they will start blaming us,” he lamented.

By David Atangana