Following the volume of expenses incurred during the Christmas and New Year celebrations, civil servants and traders in Rivers State are currently faced with the challenges of meeting their immediate needs.

Again, the delay in payment of the expected Christmas bonus to workers by the Rivers State Government has compounded the problem.  Also, the liquidity crisis, as a result of reluctance of banks to lend micro-credit loans to customers has negatively affected sales in the market.

Compared to the huge patronage experienced last December, there is a remarkable lull in the market now, as many people are faced with the challenges of paying their children’s school fees, instead of considering household goods and other consumables.

The Tide investigations during the week in Port Harcourt revealed that while the level of patronage for stationeries and other school materials are on the increase, those of electronics, building materials, clothings and automobile have been on the decline.

A civil servant who spoke to The Tide on condition of anonymity decried the over delayed payment of Christmas bonus to workers in the state government civil service, adding that workers hoped to have a financial reverage from the bonus but their hope and expectations were dashed posing a serious hardship after lavishing during the Yuletide celebrations.

He lamented that they are faced with the children’s school fees, uniforms, books, transport and domestic upkeep.

A market woman, Mrs Janet Wigoh, who sells female clothings at Rumuwoji (Mile One) Market, Port Harcourt, painted a gloomy picture of what the current situation has been.

“Most of us who come to the market these days are doing so because we don’t want to be idle. At times, you sit down from morning till evening and would not attend to five customers.  Things are generally hard because we are spending so much on transportation as a result of fuel scarcity we are working for our children’s school fees and the sales are not picking up”, she lamented.

On the contrary, despite the belief that what  civil servants, traders and consumers are experiencing now is as a result of over spending in December, an entrepreneur,  Dr Jude Asiegbu, chief executive officer of Jude and Sons Enterprise Limited, Port Harcourt, said the problem is multifaceted and cannot be hinged on the Yuletide spending alone.

Dr Asiegbu told The Tide that the current situation is still part of the fall out from the global economic meltdown and the crisis in the nation’s banking sector.

According to him, “before Christmas, a lot of things were comatose, banks were not lending and this made it difficult for business people not to do further investment.  In fact, 2009 Christmas witnessed the lowest expenses in almost all the places, what mattered was to put food on the table and not to spend money on frivolities|”, he said.