Nigerians are still counting the losses, as Naira scarcity persists.
Indeed it is affecting people in business, but the least set of people that you will think of when you talk about Naira scarcity are people who sall sex.
In Abuja, these category of people are speaking up.
The commercial sex workers in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), are lamented the effect of the Naira scarcity on their business.
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Patronage has stopped, since there is no Naira to make immediate payment. It is not a business that thrives on cash transfer.
According to them, although the currency swap policy was commendable, the current mode of implementation has greatly affected their business.
‘Money For Hand, Back For Ground’
Miss Alexandra Tricia (pseudo name), a commercial sex worker, said her customers had reduced drastically.
She described the development as both frustrating and slow for the business.
”The business is no longer booming like before because there is no cash anywhere.
”Some of my customers will come and after negotiations, they will ask if I have an account so they can transfer the money to me.
”When I give them the account number, they will press their phones and tell me that they have transferred some money.
”The worst part of it is that you will see their own alert in their phones but most times you will not get your own alert.
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”They will want you to start the service immediately without you getting an alert and when you refuse, some of them will start making trouble.
”In fact, there is one of my colleagues that a customer sent a transfer alert to but up till now, the money is still pending but she has serviced the man,” she said.
Another commercial sex worker, Miss Ifedi Ote (pseudo name), a university dropout, said many of her colleagues in the business had left temporarily due to the current Naira crunch.
Selling Low To Earn Naira
She said the development had caused customers who had little cash at hand to pay ‘next to nothing’ for their services.
”Clients who have cash will price you as low as 1,500 to 3,000 Naira.
”When you refuse, they will tell you that the amount is the only cash they have on them and because I need cash, I will be forced to accept the price.
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”Even the Point of Sale (PoS) agent where we usually direct our customers to for money has suddenly run out of cash for the past two weeks.
”I think this policy is a good one because it could curb crime but the banks are not implementing it well,” she said.
Another commercial sex worker, Tracy Ehigbere, appealed to the authorities concerned to urgently address issues around the Naira swap policy.