The is­sue of the lack of for­eign ex­change and RBC cut­ting cred­it card spend­ing lim­it by US1,500 just re­cent­ly is cre­at­ing prob­lems for busi­ness­es sell­ing African prod­ucts, which can af­fect ser­vic­ing their cus­tomers.

The Busi­ness Guardian spoke to a few lo­cal busi­ness­es sell­ing African prod­ucts ex­pe­ri­enc­ing these prob­lems.

Own­er of Ka­ma­ras Cul­ture store, Mosi Mawusi, said ob­tain­ing for­eign ex­change from com­mer­cial banks con­tin­ues to be a night­mare, and at times she has had to turn to the black mar­ket to meet the de­mand.

“We buy our black soaps, shea but­ter and oils from dif­fer­ent parts of the African con­tent and you need forex to do so. That is why this prob­lem needs to be ad­dressed, as it is the small busi­ness­es that feel the squeeze and end up in deep wa­ter, which a lot may not be able to sur­vive,” Mawusi lament­ed.

She ad­mit­ted that some­times she has to turn to the black mar­ket to get the for­eign ex­change to pur­chase the var­i­ous items for the store, as the bank on­ly of­fers US$200 a day, even to busi­ness own­ers and her prod­ucts are in de­mand by her cus­tomers.

An­oth­er chal­lenge be­ing faced, Mawusi in­di­cat­ed, is the cut­ting of for­eign ex­change cred­it card spend, which was first done by Sco­tia Bank in March 2020 and by Re­pub­lic Bank in Sep­tem­ber 2023. The an­nounce­ment by RBC that it would re­duce its for­eign ex­change lim­it on Sep­tem­ber 1 is wor­ry­ing, as busi­ness own­ers need to have more ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty to im­port and ex­port, said Mawusi.

She said her store ex­ports cas­sa­va to Ghana and the dif­fer­ent oils to the Unit­ed States.

She said her goal is to ex­port to oth­er coun­tries in the near fu­ture.

Grow­ing clien­tele

Mawusi said three years ago, af­ter her fa­ther’s pass­ing, she took over Kara­mas Cul­ture. She al­so set up a booth in the Lidj Ya­su Omowale Eman­ci­pa­tion Vil­lage, at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah since then and has ex­pe­ri­enced an in­crease in sales at the store, which is lo­cat­ed in Ch­agua­nas.

“I have seen a 40 per cent in­crease in rev­enue, just from be­ing in the vil­lage and I ex­pect the num­ber to go up this year as well. The vil­lage runs for six to sev­en days lead­ing up to African Eman­ci­pa­tion Day cel­e­bra­tions, which gives small busi­ness own­ers enough time to sell their prod­ucts,” Mawusi added.

Beza­leel De­signs Ltd and Be You Ap­par­el which is owned by Kad­jia Dy­er and Christo­pher Julien, al­so ex­pressed sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments about the for­eign ex­change saga.

Dy­er said she works around the is­sue by us­ing her cousins, who are in the US, to pur­chase the raw ma­te­ri­als.

The cut­ting of cred­it card spend­ing by the banks is al­so a ham­per for these busi­ness own­ers.

“The prob­lem is, let’s say four dif­fer­ent stores abroad are hav­ing sales, the busi­ness own­er can on­ly buy from one due to the cut and the month­ly cy­cle in which the card op­er­ates, so that puts a damper on the busi­ness own­er util­is­ing sales. This forex is­sue has been go­ing on for too many years now, with­out a so­lu­tion in sight,” Dy­er ex­plained.

Dy­er whose store is on­line al­so spoke about how prob­lem­at­ic it is for mi­cro and small en­ter­pris­es to open a bank ac­count.

“It’s so dif­fi­cult, es­pe­cial­ly now with the in­tro­duc­tion of the Com­pa­nies Reg­istry On­line Sys­tem (CROS) that is al­ways mal­func­tion­ing when you reach a cer­tain part. It takes you back to the be­gin­ning and I’m go­ing in and deal­ing with the cus­tomer ser­vice rep­re­sen­ta­tives, but they are not al­ways equipped to an­swer cer­tain ques­tions. So it forces you to go back to the old days and place your mon­ey un­der the mat­tress.”

“When you put it in your sav­ings ac­count, the bank will call you to say, they no­ticed you de­posit­ed $20,000 in your ac­count in one day and that you know, it’s a reg­u­lar sav­ings ac­count. When you ex­plain to them why that is.  The bank of­fi­cials say, no, no, no, you have to con­vert it to a busi­ness ac­count, which is where the red tape comes in­to play,” she lament­ed.

Dy­er, who has a booth at the Eman­ci­pa­tion Vil­lage, al­so spoke about the is­sue with the en­tre­pre­neurs try­ing to get a Lynx ma­chine.

 “Some of them are in var­i­ous banks, and yet their bank won’t lend them a Lynx ma­chine for the pe­ri­od. Some banks do, and oth­ers don’t. We are in a so­ci­ety now where every­one is work­ing with plas­tic. So peo­ple want to work with more cards as op­posed to cash,” she high­light­ed.

More aware­ness

Own­er of Prindela’s Fash­ions, Car­ol Man­dela, said with the re­newed aware­ness of African-in­spired gar­ments, the shop is in high gear as peo­ple seek to fill their African cloth­ing needs.

She said the store sells a wide range of au­then­tic African cloth­ing, fash­ion jew­ellery, and ac­ces­sories.

The store has been in op­er­a­tion out of Man­dela’s home in Dins­ley Gar­dens since 1999.

 Asked if she in­tends to start ex­port­ing, Man­dela said “No it’s strict­ly in-house busi­ness, no on­line for ob­vi­ous rea­sons, we like to see our cus­tomers in it to make sure to get the prop­er fit and ad­vise them what is best for them, shape and com­plex­ion wise. You can sell ear­rings on­line. But I am not on­line. They told me I will get left be­hind, but I don’t be­lieve so.”

On the most talked-about top­ic per­tain­ing to the cut­ting of cred­it card lim­its, Man­del­la said this af­fects her as she us­es the cred­it card to buy clothe and ac­ces­sories for the jew­ellery.

“So even though you may have a cred­it card with US$15,000 as a lim­it, with Re­pub­lic Bank, you can on­ly use US$5,000 per cy­cle. So that is a chal­lenge,” she out­lined.

One way of fix­ing this is­sue Man­del­la said “We just have to find ways in this coun­try of bring­ing in for­eign ex­change, and that is where the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor comes in.”

Ques­tioned whether Prindela would be at the Eman­ci­pa­tion Vil­lage this year, she said no as where the store is lo­cat­ed, it is al­ready like a vil­lage.

“We used to go but as we have done so many add-ons to the store peo­ple are com­fort­able com­ing to try on the dif­fer­ent gar­ments in the dress­ing rooms. The vil­lage is not con­ducive for sell­ing cloth­ing be­cause to get a prop­er fit you have to try on. I am big on try­ing on and the booths would not have more than one dress­ing room,” she added.