Mrs. Alle-Mary Ekwosimba, chief executive officer of Standard Delivery Service, an indigenous courier company in the upbeat has decried high interest rate charged by banks in granting loan facilities to investors saying that such position does not help entrepreneurial spirit in the country.
Mrs. Ekwosimba intimated that even with the high interest rate charged by banks on such loans, they are also attached with stringent conditions that accessing them is like the proverbial camel passing through the eye of a needle. She further said that letters of the agreement to such loans are sometimes laced with ambiguous expressions and landmines that are only meant to tie the borrower to the apron string of the lending bank. She therefore called for caution and to read in-between the lines anybody that is negotiating a loan facility from the banks.
She said courier service at the moment is witnessing a lull as a result of reduction in volume of activities left for private courier operators. This she said came about because of developments in the industry. She complained that the evolution of Information and Communications Technology has cut drastically the quantity of items left for them to carry especially with the development of e-Dividend whereby share proceeds are being credited to investors online. She also lamented that the remaining chunk of the business has been cornered by the Bulkpost Venture, an arm of the Nigerian Postal Service that prides itself as a veritable medium for the transmission of large volume of parcels.
Ekwosimba urged the Courier Regulatory Department of Nipost to intensify their onslaught against illegal courier operators who are spoiling the business further through their nefarious activities even as she responded on what may be the outcome of the government coming out with an independent Postal Service Commission for the postal and courier sector,“ Some of the courier companies that are not strong enough presently may be out of business because obviously the stake will become higher for them to fit in “, she said.
She described Standard Delivery Service as a courier company that has integrity and has stood the test of time. She said the quality of service offered by the company has continued to enlist the patronage of their clients who never let go once hooked to their network.
