Bangla-Pesa Charges Dropped
August 20, 2013
THE CASE IS OVER! Today the Director of Public Prosecutions announced that all charges against Bangla-Pesa are hereby dropped! This is a huge success for Bangladesh and for poverty reduction programs in Kenya.
We are incredibly grateful for the huge amount of support in Kenya and around the world. Without it, this program could have easily been forgotten and the accused held in prison. There is no doubt that we are part of an International Complementary Currency movement that is growing daily!
What does this mean for Bangla-Pesa?
- That there are no laws in Kenya that have been broken by this program.
- Before re-launching the program we are waiting on two things: confiscated Bangla-Pesa to be returned from the Central Bank, and official government recognition of the program.
- Community Meetings will commence next week to get begin the process of putting Bangla-Pesa back to use.
- We are asking for continued support of these programs, as communities around Kenya and East Africa wish to duplicate the successes of Bangladesh.
- With the support raised so far via Indiegogo we hope to finalize all legal matters and relaunch the program with detailed monitoring and evaluation over the coming years.
Why is Bangla-Pesa so important? As a poverty reduction program, Bangla-Pesa points in a new direction for community development by fundamentally re-thinking our means of exchange and how it issued. It gives those living in dire conditions the ability to create their own means of exchange and stabilize their own economy.
-Will Ruddick