Segun Kuti-George is the manufacturer of Goshen Exquisite Marble and Chairman (Lagos State Chapter) of the National Association of Small Scale Industrialists (NASSI). In this interview with GEOFF IYATSE, he examined the challenges facing the manufacturing sector while scoring government's contribution to development of the real sector, low.What are the peculiar factors affecting micro industrialists'The challenges are not new; they are issues we have talked about over the years. Like a sore tongue, they have refused to heal. Chinua Achebe, in reply to the government on the national honour offered him, said the problems he cited seven years ago when he was offered the same award are still there. Hence, he said there was no justification for accepting the honour.That paints the picture of where we are. Things have not improved. In terms of power, we are still where we were during the administration of Olusegun Obasanjo when we were fluctuating between 2,000megawatts and 4,000megawatts! Today, we cannot still boast of 5,000megawatts. So, what has changed' Meanwhile, statistics says the combined generation through private means is not less than 50,000megawatts. Every household has generators; every room has a generator. The same applies to every flat, every office and every company including government establishments.Can't we even make an emergency provision for a change' We are in critical situation. Sometime ago, we heard about 4,200megawatts. If that is true where is the power supply' There has been no improvement. The only thing we hear is we are doing this and that. Nigerians want to see the actions in real terms.Funding is still an issue. When the banks were healthy they weren't giving money to real sector. Is it now they are on survival line that they will give' There is also the challenge of human capacity, but that has improved tremendously in recent times. Associations and individuals organise manpower development workshops and seminars regularly. We encourage mentoring and people are improving in what they are doing. You come across local brands that meet international standards but they are constrained by multiple taxations, absence of power supply and others.What the challenges translate to is high production cost. That is why people wonder why local products are more expensive than imported ones. They forget that production is subsidised in other countries where they are coming. There is no time the United States does not pay subsidy on one thing or the other, especially agricultural inputs. Sometimes they even buy off agricultural produce when they foresee that there will be glut in the market. Those are the materials they send to crisis zones. Venezuelan Ambassador once wondered why a country that produces fuel would be paying such a high price on the product while somebody still talks about subsidy.If you make loss for three consecutive years, the next thought is closure unless you have strong faith in what you are doing. Imagine how many years Dunlop was in operations before it started having problem. While other countries helped their companies to produce better and cheaper, Nigeria refused to help. Michelin came to start production just for it to discover that it could not produce here and sell competitively.These are the same familiar tales. Are there new ideas manufacturer associations think the government can buy into'Hydro is not the only source of power. Wind turbines can be built; there is also solar. Even countries that have sufficient supply of electricity still depend on various sources of energy. There is a particular state in the US where wind turbines are built on a mountain to generate power. What are we doing with the mountains surrounding us' Even in rainy season, we have sufficient sun.People lose much manpower because there is no power, and the Chinese are exploring this. If given opportunity, private sector can make something fantastic from this.Do business people still have confidence in the government'Look at the subsidy removal debate. People would have ordinarily bought the idea if there were trust. We don't trust government. We have heard a lot of promises in the past, which eventually translated into mass poverty. I was in the country when a dollar was 60k and a pound between 80k and N1; I was working in bank then.Suddenly, the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) came; we liberalised the market with the government assuring that there would be stability before long. Has there been any stability since then' The government promised to improve infrastructure and others; about 30 years later, we are still talking about electricity. Hospitals, schools and roads are still in a terrible state, public hospitals, rather, have become prescription centres.We don't trust the government will do what it promised it would. There is no trust any longer because we have been disappointed many times. Nobody wants to take the risk of paying N150 per litre because of promises that will never be fulfilled just to help politicians change their cars. If they want us to trust them, they should first reduce their salaries and allowances. Somebody said we could build a new refinery with N39b whereas the government says it spends N750b on fuel subsidy within a year. How is it difficult to build new refinery or refurbish existing ones if that is how affordable it is'The National Assembly said the President could not even convince them on why subsidy should be removed. If they cannot convince themselves, on what basis should we trust them' If I pay N150 per litre, how will the transporters respond' How will landlords, market women respond' Of course, prices will increase. Now, has the earning power of an average worker increased' Many more companies will fold up. Many more employees will be thrown into the labour market. Crime rate will increase, and the government would have failed woefully.I am not saying we can't do that if the government chooses to allow the people bear their burden. If, for instance, there is electricity and you remove subsidy, people will have alternative source. They will not have to depend on generators. They will use public electricity and pay their bills. The demand on fuel will relax. If we have functional refineries, and we compute cost of production and other auxiliary costs and discover that it is above N65 per litre, then the people can reason with you.What are survival measures of business operators'Power generation and distribution is the prerogative of the Federal Government. You can see that from states that have generated some megawatts. They have to feed the power to national grid because they cannot distribute directly. Unless you are licensed, you cannot generate power. If there were clusters, you could talk about facility sharing. But how does a company located in Ikeja share facilities with another one in Ota'I think that comes to question the idea of industrial parks'There are no industrial parks anywhere. Ikeja Industrial Estate was built by late Obafemi Awolowo. How many of such estates have successive governments built' Nigerite, Tower Aluminum, Mouka Foam, Dunlop, Guinness, Berger Paints and many other companies that employ hundreds of people are there. Imagine the difference 10 or 20 others would have made.Can't the state governments that have proposals on ground, maybe by way of land allocation, give reality to the initiatives'They can, but the political will is not there. In any case, I commend Lagos State. There is one at Lagos-Epe Road. There is an agricultural park proposed for Ikorodu axis. But the projects have not been completed yet. Such are what responsible government should be thinking of. They should build special parks for small businesses. If you have big businesses that import raw materials you are not there yet. There must be small businesses that provide support for big ones.
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