By Charles Okonji
The Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) has called on the Federal Government to put in place an effective monetary policy to ameliorate the untold hardship caused by the inability to access cash due to naira swap.
The President of the association, Francise Meshioye, who gave this advice in Lagos at the 7th edition of MAN reporter of the year award, regretted that Nigerians are passing through unbearable hardship as people cannot have access to their bank money deposit.
Meshioye pointed out that MAN will remain committed to the principal objective of advocating for a conducive environment where manufacturing business can thrive, to create wealth and employment opportunities for the teeming unemployed youths in the society.
He said: “If CBN has to released enough funds into circulation, they need to put effective monetary policy in place to ensure there will be no hoarding. If fund is released, it should be monitored effectively.
“The 10-day extension for the naira swap, the court has granted injunction that there should not be another extension, so, the CBN should make cash available to revitalize businesses and galvanize the economy.”
The MAN President affirmed that the association will remain strategic in its engagement during the 2023 electioneering year to place its issues on the front burner.
He said: “We have engaged the presidential aspirants on the importance of having a virile and competitive manufacturing sector. We have equally pushed at different fora with major political contenders to incorporate the need to accelerate the growth and development of the manufacturing sector in their economic agenda. In this regard, we have availed all the political parties with our Blueprint for the Accelerated Development of Manufacturing in Nigeria as well as the agenda for manufacturing in Nigeria for the next 10 years.”
He decried that the current fuel crisis has affected manufacturers immensely, stressing that manufacturers are worse off as consumers do not have liquidity to pay for goods purchased.
He lamented that the present situation will lead to unsold inventory being pulled up, thereby compounding the woes of manufacturers.
“The fuel and cash scarcity will stop industries from producing the quantity needed because we rely heavily on these products. The implication is that we have a lot of idle time and we will have to pay for that. We are incurring a lot of losses by the scarcity,” Meshioye stressed.
On his part, the Director-General, MAN, Dr. Segun Ajayi-Kadir, noted the manufacturing sector is the only group of people that can be monitored effectively in terms of foreign exchange (forex) allocation.
According to him, “When we do export and we are repatriating our profits it goes through the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), so they know every Kobo coming into our accounts. For us, we need a government that must deliberately address the issue of prioritising the allocation of forex to manufacturers. There is no way we would get out of the forex crisis if we do not produce locally. ”
Commenting on Nigeria’s readiness for AfCFTA, the Director-General, underlined the fact about the opportunities and the weakness the trade pact offers, saying that to address the challenges of the agreement, it is vital to understand the rules of origin to avoid infiltrations from third countries.
“The rules of origin are very important otherwise, we will continue to have infiltrations from third countries and what they will simply do is to approach any weak economy and through that do transhipment and other trade malpractice.
“We tend to work very closely with the new secretariat of AfCFTA and that the Nigerian Office for Trade Negotiations (NOTN) needs to negotiate effectively on our behalf. So I think the media needs to call these agencies that are critical to the implementation of the AfCFTA to to do their jobs. We have consistently expressed willingness to support AfCFTA.
“We attend continental engagements that will require our contributions because inside the agreement itself, the the private sector is recognized as a key player and countries are enjoined to support the processes that we have. We have given the political gladiators our blueprint for accelerated development of manufacturing in Nigeria which we call blueprint 2.0. We have also giving them a copy of the speech that was delivered by Aliko Dangote revealing the imperatives for industrialization for the next 10 years. These two documents are what we used to engage the political gladiators,” he stressed.
