Okwara Udensi, the chairman of MAN’s Edo/Delta branch made a statement, listing several of the issues facing the industry at the association’s 36th annual general meeting some of which include a lack of foreign currency, insufficient electricity supply, excessive lending interest rates, and numerous taxes and levies.
The theme of the meeting was, “Nigeria’s Struggling Economy/Unstable Macroeconomic Policies: Lessons and Challenges for the Manufacturing Sector.”
Udensi also cited poor consumer demand for products created in Nigeria and traffic jams at the Lagos ports as reasons hurting the sector’s productivity.
To enable Ministries, Departments, and Agencies to give preference to local manufacturers when purchasing goods and services, he encouraged the government to decentralise power generating and adopt and implement Executive Order 003.
“The major problems facing our members are shortage of foreign exchange, poor electricity supply, high lending interest rates, multiple taxes and levies.
“The manufacturing sector is facing a lot of challenges and the Federal Government of Nigeria has not given the sector the needed support to provide economic growth and development. The government urgently needs to provide adequate bailouts for the manufacturing sector to avoid a total collapse of the sector.
“It is our expectation that these identified challenges be addressed by the government to move the country from an import-dependent to a self-sufficient and export-based one. This can only be made possible with consistency in government policies that will guarantee the required enabling environment so that manufacturing companies are able to operate at minimum capacity.”
A professor of Economics, at the University of Benin, Mercy Anyiwe, while delivering her lecture, urged the manufacturers to improve their products with technology so as to get good value in the international market.
