DEBTS SQUEEZING US OUT OF BUSINESS –FOOD VENDORS

To say the recession in the country is affecting all aspects of the economy, is stating the obvious. 

Food vendors and sellers of raw food items, who constitute a significant part of the informal sector, have only tales of harsh and harrowing times as people who buy food and foodstuffs on credit with the promise to pay later, routinely default. They lament how they are being squeezed out of business as a result.

A food vendor in the Ikeja area of Lagos, Mrs Chinyere Adiukwu, said it was commonplace for people to buy food on credit and that there was really no problem with that. 

Where you have issues Adiukwu said is “when many of those who buy food on credit can’t pay. 

I had a rather difficult experience where I used to sell; people would buy food and promise to pay at the end of the month, but they always defaulted.

“The effect of this is that I had to get money from other sources to make up the difference when I had to go to the market to buy raw foodstuffs to make the food. 

In fact, after I stopped selling in that place, many of the people who lived in the neighbourhood owed me for a long time. I had to keep going back before I was able to collect my money.

Even at that, I had to write off some of the debts as a few of the people could not pay. 

There is no way that kind of situation won’t affect your business, it definitely affected mine, but what can you do? Even in the new place I’m selling now, it is the same story; the recession is almost driving many food vendors out of business; we are just struggling to hang in there”.

For John Nwandugo, who sells foodstuffs, business is really bad this time as most food vendors who patronise him now buy on credit. 

Asked whether his selling on credit is based on trust that credi-tors would pay whenever they are buoyant, John, who has been in the business for over five years, said it had nothing to do with trust.

Rather, he said the situation in the country made it compelling for him to risk selling on credit. 

He said: “It is not about trust but you just have to sell on credit. This is because they will also tell you that people buy from them on credit especially those who sell to workers at construction sites. 

Unfortunately, where I buy, nobody will sell to me on credit.

“The reason I sell to food vendors on credit is that if you don’t, they will find someone who will sell to them on credit and when they are not buying on credit, they will go to the man who has been giving them credit. 

“However, selling on credit involves a lot of risk. 

There are cases whereb Some of them will stop coming to your shop after you sold to them on credit. They will find another person to be giving them credit while they continue to give you excuses. Some will only give you part payment and that may be the end.

There was a time she paid part of the money and was left with N2, 000 balance. She bought another half bag and paid in full while the balance was still hanging. 

The next thing she did was to ask for a bag and only paid the N2, 000 balance. “She said she needed the full bag so she could make more money.

After a while, I didn’t see her again and each time I went to her house, she was not around.\

When I finally saw her, she told me that she bought the bag of rice when someone invited her to be cooking for workers at a construction site along Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.

She said everything was going on fine until the workers started buying on credit since they were no longer being paid on a daily basis. So, they asked her to come for her money at the end of the month.” 

Nwandugo, who described rice as “gold”, said the food vendor still continues to take food to the site as that is the only guarantee that she would get her money from the workers.

He is however worried that too many bad debt might ruin his business and urged the government to do something about the recession. 

Similarly, a food vendor, known simply as Madam Lara, who sells rice and beans in the Oregun area of Lagos told our correspondent that some of her customers had deserted her for refusing to sell on credit. 

According to Madam Lara, there had been so much pressure on her since the recession began and some of her most loyal customers had left because they believe that she is just being wicked, not knowing that she doesn’t sell on credit as a matter of principle.Read more