High Tariffs in Nigeria

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Have you ever gone to buy goods and after done selling them, getting back to the market for a repurchase, you realized the prices just changed and you have to add your recent interest up to buy the goods? Could this actually be business or busyness?. Someone close to me told me something like this late last year that he was facing in his egg wholesale business. I was just imagining how frustrating this can be.

Let's say, I spent energy time and transportation to get the goods and also have to patiently sell it out so I can get some interest and after a week or two and on getting back to the farm, my selling price is now the buying price. Trust me, if you don't want to buy that's your business, others are piling up to buy it. This is another challenge when struggling to get goods where big names are involved. They buy in so much millions of Naira, making small entrepreneurs not have a say even when prices are high.

This was the feedback I got from him when I was considering the fact that they should show some buying resistance. My idea was that it will make the egg farms reduce their selling price. I don't know if I have talked about it in any of my recent articles but I will have to touch on 'the big name influence' one of these days.

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That was by the way, our concerns today are about the current issue of high tariff plans faced in Nigeria. There has been many increments in services since the beginning of this year. Electrical bills are one of the TOP. Our Internet service providers are in no way slacking. As usual, it is the customer that pays for business expenses. The cost of data and talk time in the process was increased. When I say 'increased', I mean increase beyond increase. Changes in prices are always around 5-10 or 15%. In many advanced countries, at 15%, citizens will be screaming for their lives.

Ok, if it were to be more of talk time, I personally wouldn't be so much bothered. I had to switch some years ago to much use of data to run my business and keep my customer base active. The internet makes it much easier to share pictures and video, messages and calls with ease. I was surprised when I logged into my data portal to realize there was a 150% rise in cost of data. Ahh!!! Could this be a glitch? Of course not. Log and in again and you'll know it has come to stay. Ok, I had to show some concerns now about my online activities because it means my monthly data use is now at 150% increase.

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I did some adjustment to cope for up to a month now and on getting back this week, Booom!!!, the tariff changed. I saw around 70-80% increment and I was not impressed. The inconveniences keep increasing, I know many will say other countries of the world are paying higher tariffs than this. Have you compared their economy, how much is their least earning? How stressful can business be over there before you make some tangible profits.

My advice to every government is, always put things in place before you make any moves. The service providers are nongovernmental businesses no doubt, but they are responding to how the government is managing the economy. Adding to that, they are even taking much advantages, the prices of fuels have reduced at least yet I am surprised why service prices keep going up without any government intervention. I guess talks won't solve the problem.

To conclude, let me add, there is more to how this can span. I have been looking at how business will be affected in the process. I will have to dig deep on this issue of how high tariffs will affect online traffics when doing online marketing. The pressure keeps increasing, Nigeria has become a ground for prepare for the worst while praying for the best. May the best out shadow the worse.

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