Employers in the Food and Beverage sector of the nation's economy have warned that decaying infrastructure, excessive taxation, and insecurity among other challenges, have continued to weigh the sector down, saying these and other challenges have continued to hamper the growth of the industry.
Speaking at its 43rd Annual General Meeting in Lagos, the President, Chief Patrick Anegbe, said despite the efforts that have been made in the last couple of years to address these problems, the Government has largely failed to match the pace of demands in these critical areas.
He stated: "Issues concerning some of the activities of federal, state and local governments that we have consistently highlighted at our Annual General Meetings have not changed. In many instances, they have assumed unimaginable dimensions, the impact of which has been to the detriment of member- companies.
"The issues include the penchant of government officials not disposed to follow the law. They have also reared their ugly heads in the indiscriminate imposition of taxes and levies, in addition to the disruption of some of our member - companies' businesses, sometimes in a most uncivilised manner.
"The gap being experienced has been a major drain on the resources of our member companies because they have had to fund their required infrastructure. It is even more disheartening that the efforts they have been making have not been recognised by the tax and other authorities such that some relief is given for the expenses these companies have been incurring in the face of the government's inability to adequately provide them."
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"The result is that businesses have continued to spend huge resources to put in place what normally the Government should be responsible for. The implication is that resources that should be used to expand the businesses are deployed to address the inadequacies that the various taxes paid should normally take charge of.
This situation needs to change if we are desirous of optimizing our productive capacity as a country."
He lamented the deplorable security situation in the country and urged the government to brace up to provide solutions to the challenge, saying "The absence of peace and stability has had their toll on investments in Nigeria. This is evident from the poor inflow of Foreign Direct Investments, FDI, over the last couple of years.
"These developments have also impacted negatively on economic growth, especially with respect to agriculture, the product of which forms part of the raw materials for businesses in our sector. Employment generation and market expansion among others have also been affected negatively."
