Follow Us on Google
By Merit Ibe
The Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON) has reiterated the need for manufacturers in the country to unite, demand their right and insist on standardisation of taxation.
The SON Director General, Mr Farouk Salim, made the remark yesterday, during the 51st Annual General Meeting of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Apapa Branch, with the theme ‘Standards: An imperative for competitive manufacturing in a continental and global market,’ where he said he expects the operators to insist on one window taxation, promising to collaborate with the association.
“Manufacturers need to demand their right, without your taxes, there will be no Nigeria. You need to push on harder and strategise. Encouraging the organisation to pursue its goal, Salim noted that the agency was determined to assist businesses and manufacturers become competitive and successful through the various standardisation and quality assurance functions, adding that standard exerts a positive influence.
Salim, who said the theme of the AGM was apt because the African Continental Free Trade Area ( AFCFTA) will create new opportunities for African manufacturers, promised that the agency is prepared and available to collaborate with manufacturers to enhance access to the continental market.
“Competitiveness increases the need for industries to improve. Countries that adopt standard grow faster.”
He urged government and good spirited individuals to provide more testing labs, adding that manufacturing and standard go together.
President of MAN, Mansur Ahmed, said manufacturing is not where it should be, because we have been dependent on commodity. “We are weak because we depend on imported goods. No country survives on importation but on consuming what they produce.”
Ahmed said we transform these commodities into finished products, it will give us wealth and that will create the product that people will have to consume. This will in turn generate wealth and resilience in the economy. If we can transform our commodities locally, all our agriculture products into the food that we eat, if we can change our cotton and textile materials into the clothes we wear, our crude oil into finished petroleum products, we will not have to rely on massive quantity of foreign exchange and we will not have to be shaken every time the prices of this commodities change.”
The Director General of MAN, Segun Ajayi-Kadir pointed out that the association has a ready partner in government, which is the SON, promising to engage the agency and ready to partner with it to move the association forward.
Chairman of MAN, Apapa branch, Frank Onyebu, noted that the last business year was yet another dynamic one for the manufacturing community and daunted with difficult operating environment.
Onyebu, who noted that the foremost challenges were direct fallout of economic trends in Nigeria, said it was worrisome that key operational challenges identified in the past still haunt the sector.
“Resilience could be the reason most members within the Apapa axis are still in manufacturing business despite the unabated increase in most of their input. We are yet to recover from the impact of COVID-19 on the sector. Our quest to continue to create jobs for the teaming unemployed youths is threatened with these challenges. Job loses are imminent with the disrupted raw materials production chain, internal security, FX illiquidity, domestic inflationary pressure, weakening purchasing power, poor public infrastructure, multiple taxation and port related issues.
However,these challenges are not only limited to the manufacturing sector.”
He called for drastic and urgent steps to caution the negative effects on the economy.
The high point of the event was awards of different categories presented to members.
