• Seek extension of deadline for old naira note
These are not the best of times for traders in Lagos as they continue to battle the impact of naira scarcity on their daily business. The traders are appealing to the Federal Government to allow new and old naira notes co-exist for a long time before the old notes fade out. They observed that business has not been booming since the introduction of the policy by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), as customers complain of lack of cash for transactions.
Despite extension of deadline, scarcity of both new and old notes persist, as Nigerians are unable to get cash at banks, POS points and Automated Teller Machines (ATM).
While petty traders play a major role in daily economy, selling basic ingredients and contributing to the nation’s nominal Gross Domestic Product (GDP), estimated at $510 billion, operators fear that the naira crisis may collapse businesses, if the Federal Government does not soften its position on the policy.
Speaking with The Guardian a petty trader in Mushin, Lagos, Olaniyi Abiola, said the development has negatively affected daily sales. He stated that the policy has not helped low-income earners who rely on daily business for survival.
According to him, bank operations have also increased tension, as it is difficult to carry out mobile money transaction due to poor network.
“There is no money in the country, this has affected our sales and even those that want to do transfer to buy goods. The network is really bad, so they are unable to do transfer. Before this present situation, I made sales of thousands of naira daily but since the scarcity of naira, the money I make per day is not encouraging at all.˝
A plastic trader at the Mushin market, Taiwo ovuremuremu, lamented that customers can’t withdraw money to purchase goods, adding that he hardly sells goods since the crisis begun.
He said: ˝Many of my customers that want to purchase goods worth N50, 000 to N100, 000 are unable to do so because of scarcity of naira notes and many traders like me are afraid to collect transfer because of bad network. So this has made some sellers like me not to release goods without cash and most of our customers are not ready to use the Point Of Sale (POS) because of their heavy charges on each transaction. This has made sales to be so dull.”
On his part, a car dealer Eniola Ogunbiyi, narrated how the naira crunch and poor bank network has affected the business. He said: “A close friend of mine, sold a vehicle to a customer, but because of the present naira situation, the customer had to do transfer but he was unlucky as the money bounced back, thereby creating a problem in a transaction worth about N3 million.
The Iyaloja Mile 12 market, Lagos, Yeyedupe Ojo, said: “ We are not selling as we should. The policy is affecting our daily survival because there is not enough cash around. Traders are even scared to accept transfer or do transfer for some of us that have a bank account. People are just buying things in bits and not in large quantities and we don’t even know what will happen when the old currency is not acceptable again.”
“In past two weeks, some customers come to us appealing that we should sell on credit, sometimes we have to attend to them as loyal customers. At other times we avoid selling on credit because it can be difficult to recoup our money.”
She added: “The government should show mercy to citizens in view of the suffering, chaos and damages the proposed ban on the old notes has caused. I will appeal to our people to be patient, as traders, we don’t want violence but government must alleviate the suffering caused by the policy. If people want to protest, it should not be violent.
“Many of our customers owe us money since the start of the naira crisis. When they come to buy goods, they complain of not having cash but we have to sell to them on credit, hoping that when the situation gets better, they will pay. We don’t have bank accounts and cannot accept transfer. However, it is affecting our business, we don’t have enough more to buy more goods.”
