Business owners in Jos have decried poor patronage occasioned by the directive of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to stop old N200 naira notes from circulation on April 10 in addition to the withdrawal from circulation of the old N500 and N100 naira notes.
In a survey by the NTV Africa on Wednesday in Jos, the owners said that, even with the extension of the use of the old N200 as a legal tender up to April 10, their businesses are threatened.
An Irish potato seller, Miss Charity Francis, said that she supplied the product across Nigeria and go to the wholesale market in Bokkos Local Government every week, “but the situation has changed now.
“I go to Bokkos every week for their two market days of Tuesday and Thursday, but I have missed four market days now because of the hardship in getting cash.
“The villagers only collect cash in the markets, even though in the past, we could get cash from the POS vendors there, but they no longer have cash to give us.
“We get demand but cannot get supply of potatoes for our customers because of the cash crunch”.
A restaurant operator, Ms Kaneng Peter, said that in spite of her acceptance of money transfers for payment of food, the patronage had reduced.
“Many customers still found it difficult to pay because of the network challenges of the bank apps.
“ I accept transfers but the network issues have discouraged many customers from coming.
“We also heard report of fake credit alerts being used for payment which is scary to us, so we are even taking a risk accepting money transfers, especially from people patronising us for the first time.
“I also have difficulties getting food stuff as some vendors claim they do not get alert when I pay them, so I get debited several times for one transaction,” she said.
Similarly, a tailor, Miss Nancy Dungkwon, said that many pending money transfer or failed bank transactions had forced them to go to banks for complaints, even amid the crowd.
A supplier of electrical products and home appliances, Mr Kelechukwu Ukaegbu, said that the low patronage was because many customers spent most of their day queuing up for cash in banks, “so they are hardly available to make any purchase”.
He said that the available customers were discouraged with network challenges being experienced in transferring money.