The beginning of each school term sees school fees and levies being paid, and regrettably some schools are still willing to accept cash payments, and that tempts thieves and robbers.
So the beginning of this term saw seven schools targeted by gangs of armed robbers. One had no cash in the school, but lost a couple of laptops, but the other six all lost cash, and that will mean not just richer robbers, but problems running the schools and delays in buying what is needed to make a better school.
The money that is stolen took a lot of families and parents a serious effort to raise and it is unjust to the parents and their children that this money cannot now be used to buy things that the school needs.
All seven schools were in or around urban areas, so there was no excuse for having money in a school safe or office. More and more schools now want parents to transfer their money electronically, and this is easy, since they can go online, use a transfer operation on their phone, use a debit card in the school swipe machine, or use one of the mobile money services.
Even the most remote rural dwellers these days have at least somewhere in the household a mobile phone and the mobile money services.
It does not need an expensive phone either to get this most basic of transaction services. So even remote rural schools can, if there is no other option, at least have the option of using a phone.
If any parents insist on using cash to pay fees, the school should in turn be insisting that the payment is made at a branch of the school's bank, and this would have been simple in the case of the seven raided schools since they were urban schools.
The parents then accept the risk of wandering around with a wad of bank notes, not the school with bank notes in the office.
The school would obviously want proof of payment, a copy of the electronic transfer with all those transaction numbers, or a copy of the deposit slip. But that is no problem and someone at the school can then access the accounts and assign each payment to whoever made it.
Banks are equipped to handle cash and there seems little reason to have more than very small amounts anywhere else than a bank
Schools have no need to have cash on the premises. They in turn, in the modern world, can make all their payments electronically, in the currency of their choice if they wish. If for some complex reason a supplier of services needs cash, they can meet at the bank.
Fortunately, this term the sums were not that large. The record school robbery must still be the 2021 raid on Gateway High School when a gang immobilised the security guards and used explosives to blow open the safe to steal more than US$250 000, about 115 sets of school fees.
Other private schools faced with having to take in large sums in cash in the days before modern electronic banking was easily accessible, at least hired one of those security companies that specialise in moving cash in transit to get the money to their bank in the early afternoon.
The police usually at least think it is worthwhile to investigate if there was an inside job, from the extreme of a member of staff joining a gang, to those who sell information.
But there can also be quite innocent details given away by a gossipy person just talking to a friend on the bus about the flood or parents coming in on opening day.
Robbers do not normally attack any place where there is nothing to steal. It does not make sense from their point of view to risk years in prison with no hope of any gain should they manage to stay free.
This is one reason why the police continuously advise everyone to keep their money in a bank. This is just common sense, rather than some complex and esoteric professional advice.
This, after all, is why we used to use cheques in the old days before electronic money and even before that why bank notes themselves were invented, as something only a few banks would accept in those days. The gold and silver coins were in a bank and people could move around with pirates and highway robbers just a nuisance, not a disaster.
But unfortunately schools are not the only ones who keep it in a safe. There is a regular procession of stories across our pages of robbers attacking businesses and homes, force-opening safes, or even stealing the entire safe, and stealing large sums of money.
Even people who think they have not been noticed selling a car for a large sum in banknotes, or making some sort of other deal, often find out far too late that they were noticed and followed.
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Even if they think they hid the money, many robbers have no compunction about using torture or threatening other family members to make the money holder talk.
Some businesses kept foreign currency in banknotes in a safe because they wanted to use it to buy imports or imported goods and had acquired the foreign currency through the black market or through some deal that was not quite kosher.
Some kept money in banknotes because they wanted to avoid taxes, or because they had customers who demanded cash. There were multiple reasons.
But in many cases they were just advertising that they had cash on their premises and that advertising reeled in the robbers, as well as the legitimate customers.
It is far better to follow common sense and police advice, keep the money in the bank, transfer money electronically and if someone insists on paying in cash make them deposit it into your account.
