NASME ex-Chair seeks more money into economy

An ex-chairman of Nigeria Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (NASME), Mr Aleem Oyetunji, has urged the Federal Government to inject more money into circulation for small businesses to survive the present challenges.

Oyetunji, who was a chairman of NASME Oyo State Chapter, made the plea in Ibadan on Tuesday.

According to him, the business environment has been so challenging, especially in the face of policies like the recent Naira redesign and cashless policy as pursued by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

“As an SMEs practitioner, the negative impact of the policies is enormous and this is as a result of the characteristics of the sector.

“The Nigerian economy is cash-based and as a result, you make your profit from the sales you make.

“Because people were denied access to cash, the purchasing power in the economy of our customers has drastically reduced to the extent that it affected our own sales,” he said.

According to him, consequently, sales, revenue and profit dropped.

“The impact is on the business which was dwindling, already. We have had to retrench some members of staff and, at times, we had resorted to doing skeletal operations.

“I am into manufacturing and whatever we manufacture we put into the market and sell, but some of our distributors are not even making sales because people coming from far are not able to come and buy.

“That has made it so difficult that their businesses are not moving as before,” Oyetunji said.

The ex-Chairman noted that the policy affected the sector so much and many people that they were dealing with were not operating or familiar with banking technology such as receiving cash and paying cash through transfers.

“If you want to do a transfer and the person you are dealing with cannot do it, what else? So there is a drop in terms of growth and development of businesses because businesses are not moving as before.

“The only positive impact is that it is training us to be technologically inclined. We are trying to train other MSMEs operators on various options and alternatives available to transact business in a cashless economy,” he said.

Oyetunji noted that prices of goods and services were becoming higher because of high demand and low supply and this had been driving prices of commodities up in addition to the inflation rate.

“It is multiple tragedies and if MSMEs are being affected then the macro economy would not be affected badly because MSMEs are the unit of the market and the economy at the micro level,” he said.

He urged the Federal Government to do something, by injecting more money into circulation to curb the downward trend the economy has been experiencing.

“Whatever policy the government wants to do should not affect the micro sector of the economy, no matter how good the policy might be.

“If MSMEs are being affected, there is no way the big businesses will not be affected because we supply the inputs for big businesses to operate,” Oyetunji said.