People do suffer!
OK, I’ve been hearing a phrase, Gb’omu le lantern, the literal meaning is placing some breast on a lantern.
Can you imagine how it will feel? Putting a woman’s succulent breasts on a lit lantern. Even a man will certainly not enjoy it.
Actually, I don’t know the roots of the phrase. But it will be sufficient for people to know that I live amongst people who have a deep sense of imagery.
They use the term to describe a particular system of getting financial help for businesses. It is no news that the commercial banks are unapproachable because of their interest rates which are out of this world.
Even when people decide to make do with the interest rates, what about their asking for collateral? And the boring documentation?
It is no surprise that some wise business people are finding their ways into the hearts of desperate people who need some financial uplifting.
We are not talking of organised businesses. Neither are we talking of people who need tons of money to launch their businesses.
We are talking of people who need less than a hundred thousand naira for their businesses. In fact, it’s even in the range of fifty thousand naira.
Fifty thousand naira, at the current rate of exchange, is not up to two hundred dollars!
The idea is very popular with what people call the informal sector. These are the people who are the retailers of goods.
Let’s look at one of them. They are operating a spaza. A neutral person looking at the business will see a lot of profits.
However, the discerning will see a lot of liabilities. Any business, to be qualified to be so described, must be based on the profits derived from the actual sales.
One has to remove the various losses incurred from the business before determining whether the business is actually making profit or not.
The person operating the business is responsible for fending for the family from the proceeds of the business. A child may be seeking admission into a higher institution of learning. One or two of two of the children might have developed a system of feathering their own nests from the business.
Lastly, since the business is basically a buy and sell affair, many goods are sold on credit. When people obtain some credit facilities from a particular store, what they do is that they move on to another store for their subsequent transactions. When they don’t do that, they refuse to pay their debts on time.
It is against that background that one should examine a loan of say, fifty thousand naira. The person is supposed to be making a payment of three thousand naira weekly. Of course, the debtor will pay some interest on the loan.
The first repayment may not be any problem. Our trader pays from the loan. However, problems might start to arise from the second expected repayment.
That’s when, the borrower will see the other side of their creditors.
The borrower might be locked in a stinking toilet. Their shop may be locked. Their guarantors may be harassed. They might even make use of some law enforcement agents illegally.
Every means will be employed to make the debtor pay their debts.
I just have a feeling that if our banks have some human face, the masses will not be going into a vicious circle of debt? And governments could do much more!
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