The Liberia Water and Sewer Corporation (LWSC) in collaboration with Lone Star Cell MTN has launched a new bill payment scheme which now makes it easier for customers to pay bills through the use of Lone Star Cell Mobile money service.
Speaking at a program held at the LWSC sub-station opposite Fish Market in Sinkor Airfield recently, the Managing Director of the LWSC, Mr. Duannah A. Kamara, stressed that the Mobile Payment service would allow his corporation to collect more money from customers as the corporation is now taking business to the people (customers).
Mr. Duannah said the launch of the new service is the first of many innovative improvements his administration envisaged noting, "I want to bring so many changes so that when I am out of here one day, people can look back and recount achievements made during my tenure".
He explained that with the Mobile Money service, customers do not have to go through the headache of commuting to the LWSC central office in Monrovia to pay their bills, as bills will be delivered to them with an eight digit number which will be used to pay bills through the Mobile Money service.
He used the occasion to warn the public not to pay money to anyone claiming to be employee of the LWSC and also not to pay people for illegal water connections, saying "just come to our central office and we will connect you and charge reasonable amount you can afford as bill"
Clarifying issues relative to his entity imposing charges on people using 'bore holes' well water for commercial purposes, Mr. Duannah pointed out that eleven local water producing companies will have paid the fees requested because they are used to using the resource for money making and as such government must also benefit. He however stated that people using private smaller wells in homes and communities for personal services are exempted from the fees.
Speaking earlier, the Head of Mobile Finance Services at Lone Star Cell-MTN, Atty. Massa M. Dennis, said Mobile Money provides an opportunity for financial inclusion to the unbanked base of the economy pyramid but most importantly digitizing payments has the potential to drastically reduce costs, increase efficiency and transparent, help build infrastructures, and broaden familiarity with digital payments.
Atty. Dennis intoned that when government shift their social, salary, and procurement payment, utility bills, taxation and licensing receipts to electronic form, it creates a foundation upon which the private sector and person-to-person payment can build.
She indicated that as government seeks to provide economic revitalization for all of its citizens, through its economic development plan, the launch of the new service is a testament to her company Lone Star Cell MTN's commitment to working with all stakeholders to realize such plan.
Atty. Dennis narrated that unless in the past where teachers and other civil servants found it difficult to collect salaries in banks, today over 4,000 civil servants in the rural areas are receiving their salaries through mobile money adding that over one million customers now have access to digital financial services via the mobile money platform.
"Mobile money is not just creating access to financial services it's creating a means of livelihood for over 3,000 Mobile Money agents spread across the country" she averred.
The Mobile Money Service of the LWSC was then formally launched by Deputy Foreign Minister for Foreign Relations, Elias Shoniyin.
