It is indeed quite disheartening that a country as huge as Nigeria is still largely shut out from the part of international commerce that will allow local online entrepreneurs and start-ups earn foreign exchange through the sale of their goods and services.
Let’s not deceive ourselves; the fact that Nigerians can now shop on amazon or alibaba using their debit cards does not in any way mean that we are participating in the game of e-Commerce internationally. What is happening, in my opinion, is that we are being fleeced by many of the international establishments.
So from Facebook to PayPal to Netflix to Uber; these international organisations are here to do business and nothing but business and with the way these types of transactions are structured, it is almost impossible for our largely analogue nation to get a dime as tax.
Can you imagine how much foreign exchange we are losing as a nation because of certain practices that government has allowed to thrive? Nigerians, for example, can make payment with a PayPal account that is tied to their debit cards and the same Nigerians are not allowed to receive money using PayPal accounts.
Let me give you a simple example; a young local freelancer who provides services online may earn an income but would not be able to receive cash easily because PayPal won’t allow it. In my personal experience, I have between $50 and $250 that I have earned as an affiliate marketer at one point or the other but as I write, these monies are more or less useless to me simply because I can’t use PayPal to receive money. I’ll not bore you with the process of how I try to receive my earnings locally which has also led to the loss of over $500 affiliate earnings.
This is one of the reasons why I am sort of happy about the mess our currency is in at the moment. It might get our government and policy makers to think outside the box and possibly take the possibility of earning foreign currency online more seriously.
It is a welcome development that a company like PayPal has opened up to Nigerians but after two years or so, Nigerians can’t still receive money on PayPal; how sad can that be? Government should as a matter of urgency start a process of lobbying these companies because the moment they allow honest Nigerians to receive money, we would immediately see the difference.
Let me re-echo what has now become a talking drum: “The fastest way to — Finish Reading on the Punch Website
