The Director-General of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Segun Ajayi-Kadir, says the insecurity in the country has forced 60 percent of MAN members in Nigeria’s insurgency-troubled North-East geopolitical zone out of business.
Ajayi-Kadir, who was a guest on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily programme on Tuesday, said many manufacturers in the country pay more to secure their assets than they pay as taxes to government authorities.
“Insecurity is a major challenge. We lost between 56 and 60 percent of our members in the North-East to insecurity. They just stopped production,” he said, adding that “insecurity is a disincentive to manufacturing activities”.
“Some of us pay for security more than the taxes that we pay because it (security expenses) has to be on a continuous basis,” Ajayi-Kadir added.
The MAN director-general said the cost of security and the increasing cost of energy continue to add to the production costs of manufacturers which translates into high prices of goods in the country.
He said though “power is not charity”, there has to be engagement between stakeholders like manufacturers and the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) before any increment in electricity tariff.
Ajayi-Kadir rejected any “arbitrary” hike in electricity tariff, saying that the cost of power supply has been “extremely prohibitive” for many manufacturers in the country.
He said the environment has been tough, not only for businesses but for individuals, noting that the President Bola Tinubu’s administration needs to work with stakeholders to smoothen the rough edges of its economic reforms and policies.
“We still need to work with government to address the issues. We still need to have some strong conversations on some of the policies of the government.
“We do not, and we cannot afford the Lord-and-Master relationship. We operate in an economy where the private sector has a lot of stakes and the Federal Government or the public sector has a duty to provide for the overall wellbeing of the people. So, there has to be this synergy for us to be able to make progress,” he said.
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