Financially struggling Namibians have turned to micro-lenders for a quick fix to their money problems amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
Most businesses in trying to adjust to the survival during the pandemic have retrenched most of its employees or have agreed for a cut on their salaries.
In trying to survive and keep on with daily needs, most employees had no choice but to approach cash loan businesses.
When speaking to some cash loan entities in the capital most of them stated that they are at the peak of their business because demand has been going up. Helena Timoteus, principal officer at KOBO Cash Loans Namibia said: “The number of clients borrowing money in June especially has increased from 3 to 8 people per day.
Comparing to other months the flowing was very steady and is because people had their jobs but since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, people lost their jobs and some their salaries have been cut, therefore they could not manage to pay their bills and all sort of things they spend on in full.”
Timoteus stated they are relatively a new business in town and did not have a lot of customers. However, she said, they did not expect a lot of them due to the pandemic, which has also affected their busines.
“Our business is very new in town so we could not really expect a lot of clients and according to the pandemics regulations our advertisement was also limited,” she said.
According to her, she only has few clients that are finding it difficult to pay back, but KOBO Cash Loans Namibia has made it easy for its clients by not putting pressure on them after understanding the effect of Covid-19 on livelihoods.
An anonymous client said worry should be on daily wage earners.
He said most of them who were retrenched have no access to bank lending services or any other formal finance.
He said the N$750 stimulus relief from the government was not enough to sustain their families all these months, so they had no choice but to approach cash loans. – mndjavera@nepc.com.na