The Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise has encouraged the federal government to lessen the regulatory burden on the country’s manufacturing industry and investors.
CPPE’s Director, D.r Muda Yusuf, in a statement on Sunday, expressed the centre’s worry over the “growing incidents of regulatory irritations, distractions, and frustrations inflicted on the Nigerian manufacturing sector and other investors in the Nigerian economy,” according to The Punch.
Yusuf stated that many businesses have encountered “outrageous fines, penalties, and intimidation,” creating a hostile investment environment and that public declarations by various regulatory authorities have a negative influence on Businesses.
“Public pronouncements by some agencies had the unintended consequences of demarketing local brands, which is detrimental to the country’s aspiration to boost domestic production, grow investment, expand exports, earn foreign exchange, and create jobs,” the CPPE director said.
He noted that businesses were already dealing with exchange rate depreciation challenges, currency volatility, high energy costs, high electricity tariffs, high logistics costs, weak purchasing power, soaring inflation, high funding costs, high cargo clearance costs, and insecurity in parts of the country and did not need to worry about anything else.
“These are enough troubles for manufacturers and other investors in the economy,” the economist submitted.
It was reported in July that reported that the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, convened a high-level meeting with oil and gas stakeholders to resolve the then-publicised issues surrounding the implied demarketing of the Dangote Petroleum Refinery.
This was following a press briefing by the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority Chief Executive, Farouk Ahmed, where the NMDPRA boss had described crude oil from the Dangote refinery as inferior to imported ones.
In August, the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria urged the Central Bank of Nigeria to settle $2.4 billion in foreign exchange forward contracts to avoid plunging the manufacturing sector into crisis.
MAN also released a statement urging the apex bank not to renege on its promises to deliver foreign exchange to manufacturers.
However, on Sunday, Yusuf stated that public disputes between regulators and businessmen jeopardized the country’s efforts to increase domestic production, increase investment, expand exports, earn foreign exchange, and generate jobs.
Yusuf said, “Regulatory agencies should see investors as partners in the Nigerian project for the growth of the economy and not as objects from which to extract the financial value of all types.”
Meanwhile, an economist and former President of the Chartered Institute of Banking of Nigeria, Prof Segun Ajibola stated that dealing with regulatory authorities was a pain that came with restructuring or reforms.
Ajibola said that some businesses or groups were affected whenever government regulatory agencies pursued reforms as the status quo changed.
“Reforms shift paradigms,” the economist stated. “It may take away from you the authority you used to have; it may impact the kind of monopolistic tendencies you used to enjoy, it may question your authority and the way and manner you have been doing things, it may introduce new corporate governance practices; an average human being becomes edgy when these things happen,” he stated.
Ajibola noted that this should not deter government agencies from implementing reforms because the country cannot expect a different outcome by doing the same thing again and over.
