August 1, 2013 – It sounds like a satire and in times like these one can never be sure. But according to various media reports Kenya saw a press conference of pickpockets in a remote and confident place giving statements on the pickpockets’ position regarding the vision of a cashless society.
Their spokesperson named Yellow Pages discouraged scientists and creative heads to continue research on cashless ways to settle debts because this would endanger the thieves’ work. Today work is already difficult, as Yellow Pages stated, because people often carry ATM cards which are useless to most pickpockets because manipulating them or skimming their data is an activity dominated by foreigners.
It seems that the professionals of this sector fear that Nairobi may be on the way of even loosing the unofficial title of ‘Crime Capital of Eastern Africa’. The consequence of this situation is that the Kenyan pickpockets demand to be assisted by the government: ‘The government should assist us gain the necessary skills meant to help us skim ATM card information as well as providing loans. This will enable us afford the technology required for the job and claw back the market share away from the foreigners and get it back to the locals. We must protect local jobs at all costs!’
Secondly, if necessary, the government should ban all foreigners from manipulating ATM cards – one may ask if government does not do so already but that may only be the pickpockets’ point of view. ‘If that’s not possible,’ Yellow Pages urges, ‘at least the government should allocate a certain quota of the market share to locals.’
In addition the pickpockets announced a campaign planned for the near future labelled ‘In cash we Trust’ and suggest that every Kenyan of goodwill may wear a sign to show to pickpockets that they are carrying cash instead of ATM cards. On that ribbon should be written ‘Every time you choose not to carry cash, you put a pickpocket out of work; Use hard cash, create jobs!’
If that does not sound like a satire.
Richard Giedroyc reported on this press conference …
… and also Kenyan newspaper Standard Digital.
Some years ago some one reckoned pickpockets to be a major plague.
If you are interested in news on cashless society and the various approaches made by different countries you must not miss our section on that topic.