BY: Dikachi Elemba, in Owerri.
The Imo and Abia branch of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) says that manufacturers and the industrial sector in Nigeria are facing the worst of times with the cost of diesel now at N720 per litre and projected to reach N1000 per litre soon.
Jude Eluma, chairman of MAN, Imo/Abia branch, who is also the managing director, Elchem Limited, Mgbidi, Imo State, said “without any doubt, the MSMEs (micro small and medium enterprises) in Nigeria will pack up, and many are packing up at the moment, because public power supply is already in comatose.”
Eluma informed that, “manufacturers depend for over 70 percent of their power supply on diesel powered generators, and with the cost of diesel now up in the skies, most factories will close up, including mine.”
Eluma called on the federal government to, as a matter of urgent national importance, to rise up to the occasion and save the manufacturing sector as a critical sector in the economy, in an email made available to Business A.M.
However, he noted that, on the issue of subsidy removal, for as long as the refineries are left to decay and in ruin without any “concrete efforts to bring them on stream, and petroleum products are being imported with a complex combination of corruption and foreign exchange variations, it will be fatal to remove subsidy.”
The politics of subsidy removal and policy somersaults in government midwife scarcity, Eluma said, adding that the government must be steady and decisive in its policies to enhance smooth flow of activities.
