Engr. Mansur Ahmed, President, Manufacturers Association Of Nigeria (MAN) an address presented during advocacy visit to the President, Mohammadu Buhari at the State House, FCT, Abuja recently said your Excellency’s readiness to promote manufacturing in Nigeria and has again assured manufacturers of your commitment to drive economic growth through improved performance of the manufacturing sector.
Engr told mr president that I would like to take this opportunity to thank you most sincerely for your esteemed association with us as we marked our 50th Anniversary and hosted our 49th Annual General Meeting. According to him, you graciously directed the Secretary to the Government of the Federation to represent you when your official foreign trip made in impossible for you to attend in person. Your Excellency, our Association chose the occasion to rebrand! We now have a new Logo, Vision and Mission Statements, which was launched by the Secretary to the Government. It will be our pleasure to present the new logo to your Excellency with the during this visit, he added.
In this regard, Engr Ahmed urge Government to urgently embark on the following: establish the Designated Competent Authority that will superintend the administration of Rules of Origin and Commission the automation of the Certificate of Origin, export and import documentation processes for AfCFTA transactions.
“MAN seize this unique opportunity to commend you for all your efforts at maintaining the sovereignty of our nation and restoring the economy to the path of recovery and sustainable growth on two occasions, in the last six years. We identify the progress made in infrastructure development; various reforms on the Ease-of-Doing-Business; and exemplary leadership in curtailing the spread of COVID-19 evidenced by relative low number of infection and fatalities when compared with many other countries in the world.”
Your Excellency, we do not wish to bore you with the plethora of familiar challenges confronting the manufacturing sector. MAN has proactively articulated remedial measures for these challenges in the Blueprint for Accelerated Development of Manufacturing in Nigeria, which will be formally presented to your excellency within the first quarter of 2022.
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The Manufacturers Association of Nigeria appreciates that the Federal Government has addressed some of these challenges while others are receiving the attention of the relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies of Government. However, permit me your Excellency to highlight a few that could be addressed in the immediate term in order to improve the manufacturing operating environment:
Your Excellency, the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria in the statement said “we commend the wisdom of your administration instituting Executive Orders 003 and 005 on patronage of made in Nigeria goods and development of local content. We humbly request that Ministries, Departments and Agencies of Government we mandated to strictly prioritize the patronage of made in Nigeria items in all their purchases and contracts. In the same vein, we urge Mr. President, as the chairman of the Presidential Motoring Committee for Implementation of Executive Order 005 to direct that the Ministry of Science Technology and Innovation to inaugurate the Secretariat that will implement the strategies for the Executive Order. As a test case of this initiative, we humbly request that Mr President direct SON to certified local manufacturers of LPG Gas Cylinders be specifically designated as priority provider of the 10 million Cooking Gas Cylinders to be procured by the Federal Government for 12 States in the Federation.”
Your Excellency, today’s advocacy visit was largely motivated by two considerations, MAN President said to thank you for all the support that you have extended to the manufacturing sector since your assumption of office while the second is borne out of the urgent need to seek the support of your Government for the manufacturing sector to overcome the binding constraints to competitive Manufacturing in Nigeria.
Your Excellency, I will like to specially thank you for the numerous initiatives, reforms and policies that have helped to steady the course of manufacturing in Nigeria, he added. Government however needs to sustain the implementation of policies that have helped the economy to quickly recover from recession, survive the onslaught of COVID-19 and revive other initiatives that have suddenly gone quiescent, he stressed.
MAN is full of expectations that Government will continue to make Manufacturing a centerpiece of its economic agenda and the enabler for upscaling national output, employment and wealth creation. This is because of its very strong and productive linkages with Agriculture, Petrochemical and Solid minerals beneficiation, Engr Ahmed concluded.
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The National Council and members of leadership of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria on appreciation visit to the president after 50th Anniversary and 49th Annual General Meeting.
