African Rip-Off again…

Once again we see that ‘rip-offs’ in Africa are in a healthy state.

And as usual it is the western companies with the comlpicity of their governments who are leading the charge (pardon the pun). In a Report carried out by the Overseas Development Unit (based in London) it is clearly shown that Africans pay substantially more for sending money ‘home’ – to pay for school fees, hospital bills, support loved ones daily food… – than transfers to other parts of the globe.

In fact, money sent to Africa through different ‘money transfer companies’ (not banks) cost twice as much as transfers to South America. Even if the cost of transfers was to come down to the world average it would pay for 14 million more Primary school places in Africa!

The report states: “But just two big international players dominate the business in Africa, Moneygram and Western Union, and participants in a meeting to launch the research were highly critical of the way they seemed to be abusing their market dominance.

One African country, however, bucks the trend – Somalia! Costs of transfers to that country are far lower than the rest of the continent. Why? Western Union and Moneygram do not operate there.

Read the IRIN article here.

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