The Director General of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, Mr. Segun Ajayi-Kadir, has revealed that between 56% and 60% of businesses of the association’s members in North-East Nigeria have been shut down by insecurity.
This was disclosed by Ajayi-Kadir during an interview on Channels Television on Saturday.
Ajayi Kadir complained that insecurity has hurt businesses, resulting in increased costs for companies all over the country.
He said, “Insecurity is a major challenge. I can tell you that we lost about 56% to 60% of our members in the North-East to insecurity. They just stopped production. And so when you want to say how it impacts your business, you now look at the cost that you incur to be secured. This was something that was not existent many years ago.”
In addition, he stated that the increased cost as a result of the deployment of private security to the overall production costs, noting that some companies or members of MAN pay more on security than taxes.
The DG said that insecurity was a barrier to the efforts of producers and governments to attract investments in this country. He called on governments at all levels to stand up for themselves.
Speaking on other issues affecting the manufacturing sector, Mr Ajayi-Kadir touched on the electricity tariff hike and the central bank’s monetary policy tightening, stating that MAN is not opposed to an increase in electricity tariff considering the rise in oil prices and others.
According to him, stakeholders must be engaged in line with the stipulated law and consumers should get value for money.
He said “The electricity tariff hike is extremely prohibitive for our members. It is a 250% increase. Where are you going to pass it? Power is somewhere between 25% to 40% of our cost structure depending on how power-intensive your production process is and this is coming at a time when you know what is happening at the interest rates, exchange rate, inflation, insecurity, multiple taxes, and levies. It is too much and it need not be this way.”
Food production and other businesses have been adversely affected by this insecurity, which has gradually spread throughout the country, particularly in the North West and the North Central.
