Businesses lament as exchange rate problems erode capital

BUSINESS owners are bearing the brunt of Nigeria’s currency problems and fluctuating exchange rates, which they say are negatively impacting their capital. 

Some businessmen who spoke to The ICIR lamented they have been struggling to restock their businesses as a result of unfavourable exchange rate.

“I sell phone at the Ikeja computer village. Most of the products we sell are imported. When you get to the distributors, it’s not the prices they gave you a week ago that you will get for products. They’ll tell us that the the naira-dollar parity is affecting prices. The effect is making my business unstable,” Ikenna Okenwa, a phone dealer said.

Okenwa feared that if the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) did not take urgent steps to stabilise exchange rates, many businesses would collapse.

Another trader at the Abuja GSM village, Maxwell Ofomata, told The ICIR that with the fluctuating exchange rate, it would be difficult to sustain funding of businesses.

Ofomata said, “The…