In 2014 I planned to visit Mikumi National Park; an absolutely beautiful wildlife conservation. To achieve that I prepared for fundraising, by offering (Swahili - English) translation services on Elance, and also selling handmade traditional ornaments on eBay. I knew that a PayPal account was necessary, good thing I already had an account which I entirely used for purchases. But it didn’t take long to realize that a Tanzanian PayPal account can only send but cannot receive money!

So, I decided to contact PayPal desperately hoping to get some help, even if it meant paying extra fees, I was willing to. It has been almost 3 years ever since I started requesting but PayPal has not yet granted the solution. They won’t disclose why Tanzanian PayPal accounts won’t receive money but kept on suggesting that I should ask buyers to use alternative payment methods like money orders, checks, bank wires transfers, etc. Honestly, that's easier said than done because popular sites like eBay prefer PayPal EXCLUSIVELY and impose restrictions from using the alternative payment methods. The moment seller suggests alternative payment methods; s/he is automatically infringing site’s rules despite the fact that such a suggestion is itself a deal breaker for most buyers and employers on freelancing sites.

I bet PayPal realizes that Tanzanian dwellers cannot sell any goods on popular shopping site like Amazon or eBay; thousands of unemployed graduates and experts cannot freelance on popular freelancing sites like Upwork, Elance, etc; domestic charity organizations cannot launch international campaigns to let millions of Diasporas and foreigners donate to a passionate course or aid. This is a lot of day-to-day missed opportunity that any person living in Tanzania is locked out of access. When will residents of Tanzania be allowed to earn online?

It is well known that Swahili is Tanzania’s native language. The majority of Tanzanians can translate English to Swahili and the vice versa in a heartbeat. These are the people who are qualified to do online translations. Tanzania has a lot of rare precious resources (like Tanzanite) that you won’t find anywhere else in the world, and Tanzanians have traditional industries that are ready to sell to the whole world. Many entrepreneurs lack seed capital for piloting their ideas. If entrepreneurs are given a chance to earn online they will surely work, save and bootstrap their startups. Sadly we have little to no access to the above opportunities because the world’s gigantic online payment processor i.e. PayPal won’t let us get paid.

If such economic barriers aren’t upheld then it must be difficult for organizations or campaigns that are trying to convince youth not to leave their countries for abroad, because nobody will want to stay in his/her country if jobs are hard to find. I believe PayPal has a role to play here by unlocking all its features hence creating job opportunities for residents of Tanzania.

Tanzania has 50+ banks, 4 major mobile money services (M-Pesa included) which can act as PayPal funds withdrawal agents if Tanzanian PayPal accounts are authorized to receive money.

Please support this petition to pursue PayPal to unlock its ‘receive money’ feature for Tanzanian PayPal accounts. You and I will help create 1000+ jobs locally. Thank you!

Note: Please excuse my grammar, I am still learning English.