Ghana: MTN’s exemption of Muslims from interest commendable – Irbard Ibrahim

Irbard Ibrahim has commended the telecommunications company MTN Ghana for its move to exempt Muslims from its MTN Mobile Money interest scheme.

Irbard in an Interview with fernilnews.com quoted portions of the Holy Quran that forbid Muslims from consuming interest and praised the teleco for respecting religious sensibilities in the country.

Irbard Ibrahim

He added that, the move is indicative of the increasing mutual respect among all religions and would help engender national cohesion.

Citing the UK and other countries in Europe that designate “halal” meat and restaurants, he called on consumer companies to respect Islam’s prohibition of alcohol and pork as well.

He however stated that MTN stands to gain when Muslims do not take their accrued interests and called for due diligence in the process since not everybody who bears a Muslim name is a practising Muslim.

MTN Ghana has explained the reason why it sent bulk sms to its Mobile Money customers over interest payments. According to a release on Saturday, April 15, MTN said it had received complaints from some of its customers –particularly Muslims – of receiving interests against their religious beliefs.

A copy of the sms sent out to clients of Mobile Money MTN explained that the payment of interests is in line with EMI guidelines issued by the Bank of Ghana two years ago. “MTN remains committed to the Bank of Ghana regulations and continues to take stringent measures to adhere to them.

“Since September 2016 when the Bank of Ghana finally gave approval for the payment of interest, MTN has paid over 45 million ghana cedis to its Mobile Money customers and currently in the process of paying the first quarter interest for 2017 in line with the Bank of Ghana calendar for interest payment.” The release said inasmuch as it remains compliant to regulations, “the company also respects the wishes and religious beliefs of its customers and will not continue to offend them by paying interests to them if they wish to opt out”

Source: fernilnews