MAN Pledges to Deepen Advocacy on Partnership, Industrialization Initiative

The Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, (MAN), has reiterated that its focus would be in continuing to drive measures as well as expanding partnerships to ensure that Nigeria’s industrialization objective is attained.

President of the Association, Engr. Mansur Ahmed made this pledge while speaking at the 2nd Adeola Odutola lecture to commemorate the 50th Annual General Meeting, (AGM), of the MAN,  in Lagos, adding that the theme of the AGM “An Agenda for Nigeria’s Industrialization in the next decade” is necessitated by the need to take stock of its journey into industrialization so far to ascertain the pains and pain-points, highlight performance limiters, recognize the gains and milestones, and to identify learning curves and hurdles for the journey ahead.

Ahmed explained that the choice of Dangote as the guest speaker for the lecture was, “clearly predicated upon our belief that only experienced industrialists are well equipped to do justice to the theme, visibly highlight essential advocacy issues, suggest workable solutions and point the sector to key industrial development agenda for the next ten year.”

Ahmed stated, “Clearly, all of these will enable the Association to craft a robust agenda for resetting industrialization, albeit manufacturing in Nigeria for the next ten years.

“We believe that this time horizon is congenial to sustainable industrial development of the country, resonates with the Government extant National Development Plan (2021-2025) and of course easier to monitor.”

President of MAN commended efforts of the President Buhari’s administration in the area of road and rail construction projects implementation; the timely passage of the budget, the effective management of the spread of COVID-19; the exemplary leadership in judicious utilization of national resources and the crafting of robust Economic Growth, Development and Sustainability Plans that cumulatively steered the course of the economy to the path of recovery during turbulent periods of recession.

He explained that over the years, the performance of the manufacturing sector has been constrained by familiar challenges that are clearly advocated in our several submissions to the Government.

Ahmed stated that the challenges of the manufacturers include increasing incidence of new tax heads payable by manufacturing concern which become a major threat to the survival of manufacturing companies in diverse ways and responsible for the prevailing increase in the cost of doing business; reduction in investment inflow as well as additional pain-points on manufacturers.

He announced that going forward, the expectation of manufacturers is that the Government should properly structure the tax system to be more progressive by widening the tax net, harmonizing business taxes/levies and putting in place a comprehensive and integrated framework that will facilitate the intentional movement of operators in the informal sector to the formal sector.

He also hinted that inadequate access to forex for importation of critical inputs that are not available locally has hindered their performance in the sector.

He stated further that they were hopeful that following the stable high crude oil price in recent time, the Government would intentionally intervene and ensure that more forex is made available to manufacturers.

He cited another challenge as the issue of inadequate supply and high cost of electricity, which he said is due largely to limited investment in the electricity value chain.

 “We want Government to upscale efforts at improving power generation capacity, to take advantage of the abundant gas resources in the country by promoting more gas fired electricity plants, allow manufacturers to access gas at the prevailing export price and classify manufacturing concerns as strategic user of gas to reduce the current high cost of energy and improve the competitiveness of the sector,” he said.

President of the Association lamented that the sector has been contending with inadequate credit supply and high cost of borrowing for so long, adding that this has grossly affected investment and utilization of available capacity in the sector.

He lauded the Government’s efforts at solving the credit challenge of the sector through the various CBN funding windows.

“Your Excellency, we are aware that till date only about 20% of the funds has been accessed, which calls for deliberate effort to make the funds accessible to manufacturers, especially at this period of global economic difficulty.

“We commend the efforts of the Government at combating insecurity in the country. No country can successfully industrialize under the siege of insurgence, banditry, kidnapping and other related security vices. Your Excellency, we plead that in mapping out strategies to checkmate insecurity, the industrial areas across the country should be given priority attention,” Ahmed emphasized.