Traders appeal to CBN over scarcity of lower denomination naira notes

Some traders in Lagos on Monday appealed to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to ease their transactions with customers by injecting adequate lower denomination Naira Notes into the system.

The traders, in separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos, said dearth of lower Naira notes was affecting the volume of their business activities.

A stall owner at Ayobo market, Mrs Ayisat Bello said that the major problem she had been facing in the last three months was dearth of lower denomination notes.

“All I get from my customers are N1000, N500 notes, even when they buy little things like soap and biscuits.

“Getting ‘change’ is a headache because I don’t have enough lower denomination currency notes. My business is really being affected, “she complained.

A grocer at Iyana -Ipaja, Mrs Ada Nwachukwu, said she had to turn down customers many times because there was no ‘change’ to give them.

“ Honestly, it is painful that I turn down customers because of this problem. Customers bring N1000 to purchase N100 worth of items and you search your purse, only to be seeing higher denomination notes.

“ You ask your fellow traders for ‘change’ and they complain of the same problem”, she said.

Nwachukwu urged the government (CBN) to do something about their predicament by injecting enough lower denomination notes into the system.

A trader in Agege, Mrs Peculiar Adetu, said she was forced to resort to buying lower denomination notes at the motor park to address the problem.

She said though the idea had helped, it made her incur additional cost that reduced her profit margin.

“I buy lower denomination currency at the Agege motor park so that I don’t have to be running helter-skelter looking for ‘change’ to attend to my customers.

“The idea is working well but at a cost. Passing the cost to the customers will make the items of my competitors cheaper.

“The customers will go elsewhere to make their purchase. So I bear the extra cost,” she lamented.

A civil servant, Mr Abayomi Taofeek, said he often had problem with ‘change’ when making purchases.

He said he had been turned down by traders several times and had to forgo his ‘change’ on one or two occasions.

According to him, the problem manifests more when someone wants to board commercial vehicle and has no lower denomination currency.

“ The first thing you hear these conductors say is ‘Enter with your change o’.

“If you do not have lower denomination note, you stay at the bus stop for eternity,” he said (NAN)