Mr Muda Yusuf, the Director General of Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), says the country is losing about N82 billion daily to the ongoing strike.
The labour unions and civil liberty organisations started a national strike on Monday in protest against the removal of subsidy on petrol. The strike entered the third day on Wednesday.
Yusuf said in Lagos on Wednesday that he arrived at the figure based on the country’s national output.
“We have an estimated national output, which is a GDP of N30 trillion. If you estimate the daily output, you are looking at N82 billion,” he said.
According to him, the informal sector is also be losing a lot as operators in the sector are sustained by daily transactions.
“The informal sector, micro enterprises and some small businesses must be feeling big pains arising from the strike because they are driven by daily transactions.
“It is even worse now because they don't have the opportunity to do any business,” he said.
Yusuf said that investors were?also not?left out because many of those who imported one thing or the other had vessels stuck at the ports.
“You cannot discharge your cargoes from the vessels without paying port charges.
?“You cannot also remove your cargoes from the ports without paying for demurrage on the cargoes to the port authorities.
“And all these things are financed most often by borrowed funds, so interest cost is accruing on all these funds; yet there is no transaction, no movement.
“That again is another burden on businesses,” he said.
Yusuf said that employers would also have to pay employees, even when the employees were not on their duty posts.
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