Chief Kola Jamodu, MAN President
Crusoe Osagie
The Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) has announced its decision to terminate the pursuit of an Independent Power Project (IPP), which it embarked upon about three years ago.
The project should have been completed this year if it was carried out as planned.
President of the association, Chief Kola Jamodu, told journalists Wednesday in Lagos, at the presentation of Blueprint for the Accelerated Development of Manufacturing in Nigeria that the association would no longer continue the project due to logistic challenges.
According to him, it will be difficult for the association to distribute the power generated to all its members across the country.
“We are encouraging members to build their own power plants. With all hands on deck, patience and consistency, we will achieve sufficient power generation and distribution in the country”, he said.
Jamodu, in the blueprint recommended that government should be committed to good governance and sustain current reforms in order to engender stability in the political and economic terrain and also win investors’ confidence.
He urged government to adequately empower enforcement agencies and provide more support for its anti-corruption crusade.
He stated: “There should be VAT exemption on raw materials, which are used in the production of non-VAT goods. We want zero duty on imported plants and machineries under HS 84, 85 and 90 for the next five years. Import prohibition of the Federal Government should also be sustained to encourage competitiveness of made-in-Nigeria goods”.
Jamodu said that effort should be made to convert Nigeria’s huge resources base comparative advantage into competitiveness, stressing that whatever that would affect the fortunes of Nigerians positively should be jealously guarded by the government.
He disclosed that 21 out of 100 people in the country were unemployed.
“We want to stop being a consuming nation. We are only providing employment for any country that exports their products to Nigeria. Gross Domestic Product must increase substantially to curb unemployment in the country,” he said.
He added that production remained the key to the country’s accelerated growth and MAN will continue to complement government’s efforts towards reviving the ailing manufacturing sector.