Manufacturers may get tax relief for generating electricity

The Federal Government is considering granting tax relief to manufacturers who generate their own electricity.

This formed part of the discussion at the Economic Management Team meeting held at the Presidential Villa, Abuja on Tuesday.

The meeting, which was also attended by members of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, was chaired by President Goodluck Jonathan.

The President, MAN, Chief Kola Jamodu, disclosed the plan to State House correspondents at the end of the meeting that lasted over seven hours.

He was joined by the Minister of Trade and Investment, Mr. Olusegun Aganga.

 President, Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, Chief Kola Jamodu

Jamodu said despite the improvement in power supply in recent weeks, which has increased capacity utilisation to about 54 per cent in most industries, some manufacturers were still generating their own electricity to ensure that they remained in the market.

Aganga said the meeting was devoted to the manufacturing industry.

He said, “The meeting offered an opportunity for us to hear from them (manufacturers) what the issues are, and also for them to understand what government is doing about the issues.

“There is no country that moves from being a small nation to a big one without industries. That is what Nigeria and Africa have not done for many years. That is why Africa only contributes only three per cent to the world global trade.

“We already have an Industrial Revolution Plan, which is based on three main pillars: moving our industries to areas where we have big comparative advantage, industrial skills development and innovation.”

He said with enhanced attention given to agriculture, mining and petroleum sectors, an effort which had saved the country over N200bn in the cement industry alone, the government was set to focus on iron and steel production to galvanise the economy by going into automotive production.