Currency Shortage Threatens DRC's Small Businesses GlobalPress: DRC
Kanyere Mukewa spreads a mat on the ground at an open-air market in Kirumba, a town in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. She meticulously arranges the vegetables she sells -- cabbage, mushrooms, pumpkin leaves and amaranths -- in bundles, bunches and piles. It is something she has done for 17 years, but lately she has become increasingly worried that her business might fail because customers have stopped coming.
Her customers have stopped coming, not for lack of interest, but because Mukewa has more than doubled the prices of her vegetables, from 200 Congolese francs to 500 francs . But she isn't doing so because of greed. She just doesn't have change to give to her customers, most who pay with large notes.
A severe shortage of small-denomination Congolese francs has made it nearly impossible for traders in Kirumba and the wider Lubero territory where the town is located, to conduct daily business. Small-scale traders like Mukewa -- who prefer cash because of the high transactional cost of mobile payment systems -- have been hit especially hard.
"The mint cannot inject a lot of funds to produce a currency that no longer has any value on the market," Musubaho says.
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