President of the African Development Bank (AFDB) Akinwumi Adesina has revealed the actual cause of lack of growth in the Nigerian industries.
According to him industries in Nigeria are not seeing any growth because it lacks reliable power supply.
He made this revelation while speaking on Tuesday at the 49th annual general meeting of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) in Abuja.
Adesina stated that Nigeria loses $29 billion annually which is about 5.8 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) due to lack of reliable power supply, he stated while quoting a report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
“Today, no business can survive in Nigeria without generators. Consequently, the abnormal has become normal.”
“Traveling on a road one day in Lagos, I saw an advertisement on a billboard which caught my attention. It was advertising generators, with the bold statement “we are the nation’s number one reliable power supplier!”
“To be a manufacturer in Nigeria is not an easy business. You succeed not because of the ease of doing business, but by surmounting several constraints that limit industrial manufacturing,” he said.
“Today, the major challenge facing Nigeria’s manufacturing is the very high cost and unreliability of electricity supplies. Load shedding and the inconsistent availability of electrical power have resulted in high and uncompetitive manufacturing costs.”