AFBTE lists four key manufacturing drawbacks shocking industrial productivity
The leadership of the Association of Food, Beverage and Tobacco Employers (AFBTE) has listed four major challenges that have been impacting on the expected rise in their industrial performance and ease of doing business in Nigeria.
Explaining issues in his address at their recent Annual General Meeting in Lagos, the President, Chief Patrick Anegbe, listed part of the challenges to include, high costs incurred because of non-existing or inadequate infrastructure, arbitrary imposition of multiple taxes, shortage of foreign exchange and disruption of petroleum products’ supply.
He said even though the economy may have been said to have exited recession, the sector is stilled suffering the observed weak and fragile nature the economy had been under since recovering from recession.
Though he was quick to observe that several interventions of the Organised Private Sector through engagement with the government and the critical agencies had helped, largely, to stabilise the interruptions of business operations, he argued that the manufacturing sector was one of the major contributors that made it possible for the economy to get out of recession.
Anegbe assured employees of harmonised salaries/wages and fringe benefits to impact on workers’ welfare packages, saying “Today’s AGM is essentially for stock taking. It affords us the opportunity to look back at the last one year of our existence as an association within the context of the environment in which our respective companies do business”.
“This gathering also enables us to take the learning points of the past year into consideration in strategizing for the future of our association and our respective businesses.
“In general, the business environment has remained uninspiring. Due to this, the industry recorded quite a number of job losses in 2017 because of closure of some production lines due to unbearable costs.
“We believe the OPS should continue to engage government at all levels on the problems encountered with the ease of doing business policy. There is a need to ensure adequate logistics in procuring the required input for production and seamless access of the output to the market.”
Earlier in his goodwill message, the President, Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Dr. Frank Jacobs, advised the Federal Government to continue working on the ongoing reforms until the entire efforts begin to translate into low cost and ease of doing business in Nigeria.
