Chairman of the Oyo, Ogun, Osun and Ekiti states chapter of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Lanre Poopola, has appealed to the Federal Government to save the sector by urgently addressing the high cost of diesel and constant collapse of the national grid.
Poopola gave the charge while addressing journalists, saying the constant collapse of the national power grid was about to send most members of MAN out of their businesses.
He said the government’s failure to guarantee a reliable power supply had become a serious issue to the members, as the erratic power supply had impacted negatively on the equipment and raw materials of members’ companies.
“In March alone, the country witnessed over three collapses of the national grid and each of them comes with great consequences to our factories.
“Why is it so difficult with all the engineers in the Ministry of Power, Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), the Genera- tion Companies (GenCos) and the Distribution Companies (DISCOs) and other stakeholders to end the constant breakdown of the grid? “Smaller neighbouring countries around us do not have such challenges.
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Their public electricity supply is always staple, yet we pride ourselves as the giant of Africa,” he added.
He lamented that the price of diesel has increased from about N300 per litre in January to between N700 and N850 per litre, adding that since the government was unable to guarantee stable power supply, serious businesses and the manufacturing firms now rely heavily on their generating sets, with excruciating cost implications, The Trumpet gathered.
Popoola argued that with the increasing price of diesel in the last few weeks, most members of MAN were contemplating closing their operations, insisting that the current price of diesel could be used to run any successful business.
“Before the RussiaUkraine war, we com- plained that we are spending about 30 per cent of our running cost on power generation alone. Currently, we are spending over 65 per cent of our revenues on diesel and we also pay for lack of public electricity supply,” he stated.
He stated that members of MAN had not experienced what they were currently going through, adding that besides the high cost of diesel and pub- lic power bills, the prices of raw materials and spare parts of machines needed to run their factories have also increased.
He, therefore, urged the Federal Government to assist the local manufacturers to avoid total shut down of their operations.