Lagos — Niger Delta Budget Monitoring Group (NDEBUMOG) has called on the Federal Government to introduce policies that would save manufacturing companies from folding up or relocating from the country.

The call is coming at a time most manufacturing companies in the country are experiencing multidimensional difficulties, ranging from deteriorating infrastructure, energy crisis, as well as low patronage of locally manufactured products.

NDEBUMOG's National Coordinator, George-Hill Anthony, made the appeal in Port Harcourt on Wednesday while briefing newsmen on the need for government to save the few manufacturing industries in the country from relocating to neighbouring countries as a result of high cost of production.

He said: "There is an urgent need for the Federal Government to ensure that the low demand for locally manufactured products, inconsistent monetary and fiscal policies, as well as the massive influx and dumping of foreign finished goods into the country, are checked to save the few local industries operating in the country from relocating to neighbouring countries."

He noted that the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) recently pointed out that many manufacturing companies were steadily folding up as a result of inadequate or non-availability of infrastructural facilities compounded by energy crisis.

He said the situation called for immediate attention because no Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) would come to the country due to incessant power supply and non-availability of infrastructural facilities as well as insecurity of life and property, adding that government must act fast to save the nation's economy from collapse.

He said: "As manufacturing companies play key role in attracting FDI, generating employment, providing training and raising wages in the economy, the 40 per cent of the total energy supply through the national grid to the manufacturing sector should be increased to at least 80 per cent to cut cost of production in the sector."

He said liberalising importations of finished products into the country has been a death kernel to most of the manufacturing companies and had remained a serious threat to industries as the cost of production is becoming higher on daily basis.

The NDEBUMOG boss called on the Federal Government to take appropriate measures to check the multiplicity of taxes and the responsibilities imposed on manufacturers in the country, to make Nigerian environment more conducive for manufacturing.

"If we look at Nigeria today, the micro-economic framework and infrastructure in the country do not favour the real sector of the economy," he stated.

He urged government to act fast to save the economy, noting that the increasing cost of purchasing some raw materials and sometimes the inability of locally sourced materials to meet production demand are some of the factors that are pushing up cost of production.