This position was revealed by the Director-General of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, MAN, Segun Ajayi-Kadir, during an interactive session with journalists in Lagos.
Ajayi-Kadir noted that to strengthen the manufacturing industry, the government must deliberately work on addressing the issue of forex allocation.
Ajayi-Kadir, went ahead to emphasise the importance of forex, adding that the manufacturing sector had suffered the most with regard to the allocation of foreign exchange due to misplaced priority on the part of the government.
He said “When we do exports and repatriate our profits, it goes through the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN. So, they know every kobo that is coming into your account. When they get it, you can only get your money back at the official rate”.
“The painful thing is that once you are subjected through all these processes and have gotten your money at the official rate including the little encouragement they give if you bring it through the I and E window”.
“When you now want to import raw materials or spare parts or machines to produce again, you go to the money deposit banks, the ones that they are able to give you - if you are lucky - are about five percent of what you want. You would now have to go to Bureau De Change, and we know their rates. So, we are shortchanged and this is why the sector’s performance is decreasing.”
Last year, a Punch report attributed the low forex to the upcoming elections. By May 2022, most manufacturers were left stranded without any means of forex as most of it was mopped up by politicians preparing for the elections.
The MAN boss, Ajayi-Kadir however added that the only way the country would escape the looming economic crises will be to support local production of goods that can be manufactured within the country.
“There is no way you will get out of the forex crisis if you do not produce locally, and it is common sense that what you import is what you need dollars for. If we produce them in Nigeria we won’t need dollars to import them. So, we should give priority to the productive sector that has the capacity to revamp the economy and encourage production activities within the country” he said.