Erisco Seeks Federal Govts Help In Forex Allocation To Local Manufacturers

Mr. Nnamdi Umeofia, managing director of Erisco Foods Limited, has urged the federal government to get involved in the distribution of loans and foreign cash (forex) to regional businesses.

According to him, doing this continues to be the most reliable strategy to revive Nigeria’s failing economy in the least amount of time.

Umeofia lamented the challenging business environment that local manufacturers were forced to operate in, alleging that a cabal, with the help of a few Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), was working to suffocate the local manufacturing sector by encouraging the importation of low-quality goods.

He said: “we have a stock of goods worth over N4 Billion for about nine months which we have been finding it hard to sell due to the high cost of production and the flooding of our markets with imported substandard tomato paste by import cabals with the support of our forex.

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“Erisco has been seeking its products at a loss for about nine months now due to the high rate at which imported banned tomato paste in retail packs has flooded our markets for over three years despite NAFDAC’s reports that 91.1 per cent of the imported tomato paste are substandard.”

Umeofia added that the corporation has been funding the Nigerian subsidiary with earnings from its international commercial ventures for the past three years.

“We may have no other choice than to close down if our government continues to refuse to support genuine manufacturers like us, as some other indigenous manufacturers are already closing down and joining in importation.

“The CBN has put their trust in deceitful companies who are actually the import cabals of substandard tomato paste and other food items that can be produced locally and even better. The cabal is believed to be using paper documentation to manipulate our government as foreign investors in conspiracy with their Nigerian cronies.

“They use Nigerian cronies as cover to twist government policy to favour them and to continue to use government money as loans and foreign exchange meant for genuine manufacturers to keep importing finished tomato paste in retile packs and other food items even as they claim it be producing in Nigerian soil all year round,” he said.