The Director-General of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, Segun Ajayi-Kadir, has disclosed that electricity distribution companies have disconnected over 100 manufacturing firms.
In an exclusive interview with our correspondent at the annual general meeting of the MAN’s food, beverage and tobacco sector, on Thursday in Lagos, he revealed that 10 of the association’s members had been disconnected in Kano.
“We do not favour legal action against the Discos and NERC. We do not want to go there. One of our branches has done so, and that subsists. The Disco in Kano is still disconnecting our members despite the injunction. As an association, we do not want to engage in such (legal action) but it comes as a last resort.
“You can imagine that as of today, more than 100 of our members have been disconnected, which means that their workers have been asked to go home. It means that their production processes have been halted. It means that they are not able to fulfil their obligations to their suppliers, and they have started to lose money,” he explained.
According to the MAN DG, the crux of the matter is that manufacturers are asked to pay electricity bills that will take manufacturers out of business.
“A company told me that it was paying N7-8m before, but now it is paying N32m. The calculation is that the profit you could have made, you are not able to make it. So, you need to decide to go ahead and produce and pay an electricity bill that is more than the profit you would have made or shut down.
So, we are gradually seeing a situation where more and more industries are shutting down, because if you disconnect an industry that does not have an alternative source of power, it practically goes out of business,” he declared.
Meanwhile, the immediate past Chairman of the Food, Beverage and Tobacco Sector of MAN and Managing Director of Intercontinental Distillers Limited, Chief Patrick Anegbe, stated that the spate of insecurity in the country was hampering backward integration in the food industry.
