As at last week, total debt owed the major information and communications technology firms in the country by the 15 healthy banks was put at about N2 billion, BusinessWorld Intelligence can reveal.
This development is occasioned by the current reform in the banking sector, as banks are now very careful in their expenditure profile even for those companies that have already delivered their services. The situation is compounded by the fact that most of the banks find it difficult to spend due to the December 31 uniform year-end.
Mr. Uchenna Obidike, chief executive officer of Weco Systems Group, a leading IT firm in Nigeria, described the development as “very bad” as many of the IT companies are finding it difficult to meet their obligations. This, in effect, may lead to mass sack of employees by many of the IT firms in the country.
Although not directly comparable, the global downturn has hit IT companies hard, and 2009 has been said to be one year that firms cut back on IT spend to trim costs.
Although one of the affected companies could not disclose how many of its staff would be affected by the current realities, but said it needed to achieve 20 per cent cost savings in its workforce budget “in the form of job reductions.”