March 3, 2021
By: Mohamed Kargbo
Orange Money Agents in Sierra Leone have cried foul over what they say has been an arbitrary 5% reduction of their commission by Orange Sierra Leone from 40% to 28.2% in Freetown. They made this disclosure whilst venting out their frustration to A-Z Newspapers on the 2nd March 2021.
“We have an agreement with Orange Sierra Leone that agents are supposed to get 40% and the aggregators get 10% making it 50% and Orange money gets 50%. But this is not the case now to us, instead of having 40%, we are now having 28.2%.” said Abu Bakarr Kanu, Orange Money agent, Freetown.
He further said the recent reduction of their commission was not communicated to them and that they are not happy about this change.
According to Abu Bakarr, in October 2020 they had a meeting with Orange Sierra Leone and learnt that their commission will be reduced for just three (3) months-November, December and January 2020 and that after the three months they will have a package from them which they has not delivered.
“They promised us that after the three months they will go back to the normal commission but did not do that. Instead, they have reduced their commission further to make them have little or nothing to make ends meet.” He disclosed.
He also said, Orange Sierra Leone told them they are giving them 34% which in fact what they are receiving now is about 28.2%.
He further said, the way Orange is treating them is not good at all and that they are putting their businesses at risk.
“We have been meeting them to adjust this back to its original position or leave it at the 34%.” He said.
“We are feeling very bad about this now. Do they want us to suffer? This is unfair to us. Our agreement was 40% and why the sudden change in this” he pointed out.
He further said that, now, if you send Le100,000 you get only Le,230,00 and if you send Le1000,000 you get only Le1, 980,00 as commission. And before this time, we used to get Le 5, 000 per Le1, 000, 000 transactions.
Yusifu Kargbo also said that, “it is even difficult now to know exactly what we get as commission. Orange only sends to us what they feel like. We are having challenges in the margin of our commission. Today, one sees this and tomorrow one sees that.”
He lamented: “when it comes to sharing other messages they use the SMS means whereas in the area of reducing their commission they did it without text messages and in isolation with us.”
A-Z newspaper tried to the side of Orange Sierra Leone but all efforts proved futile, as David Mansaray Head of Orange Money dodged the press.