Thursday, March 28, 2024

For sound policy implementation, civil servants must be ‘born again’– Okoli

Dr. Stella Okoli is the Founder, Emzor Pharmaceutical Industries Limited. In this interview with ABIOLA ODUTOLA, the member of the 42-man Nigerian Industrial Policy and Competitiveness Advisory Council outlines how to make the manufacturing sector a catalyst for economic growth and recovery.

 

What do you think are the key burning issues that require urgent attention in the country’s renewed drive towards industrialisation and economic growth?
Speed is Number One. Whether we are in the private or public sector, we need to speed up because we have lost time. There are so many things that should have been done before now that were left undone, like having and implementing an effective industrial policy.
Now, we have ease of doing business initiatives by the present regime, designed to bolster the country’s business climate. For the civil servants/public officials and all those saddled with implementing these initiatives, can they match the speed required to produce a good result? Are they determined to show more commitment to implementing government policies? These are things they have to do, and with speed, for us to make progress.
Apart from these, we need to quickly set up industrial parks to boost manufacturing. The Asian countries have adopted this strategy successfully a long time ago and it has helped to boost their industrial capacity. Now, they dominate markets around the world with their products. We can also have Information and Communications Technology parks in different localities to enable our young people who are skilled in ICT to leverage on that, to make something positive for our country; we need to encourage the youth to innovate.

How do we curb restiveness among the youth?
A lot of efforts should go into creating employment opportunities for our youth so as to curb restiveness and other negative tendencies among them. It is sad that many of our university graduates are unemployable but they can be retrained or assisted to acquire skills to meet the requirements of employers. There is also the need to address our infrastructural deficit and create a favourable climate that will attract foreign direct investment. We cannot continue to have a mono-economy and make progress; we have to diversify our economy away from oil. That is why it is important for the government to support the productive sector – agriculture, industry, and the small and medium-scale enterprises, which are the engines of economic growth and employment generation.

With the Central Bank of Nigeria’s directive to banks to allocate 60 per cent of foreign exchange sales to the manufacturing sector, what has changed?
Not much has changed; getting foreign exchange is still a major problem. Manufacturers should be given preference in the allocation of FOREX but the banks keep saying they don’t have FOREX. We expect the government to go beyond this and provide us with intervention funds that were promised about four or five years ago, so that we can buy equipment, machinery, and raw materials to sustain our operations. You are aware that most industries got theirs; we were not given, especially those of us that were trying to attain the World Health Organisation’s pre-qualification for our pharmaceutical products and production processes, which is a huge expense. The pharmaceutical industry requires about N30 billion intervention funds at a single digit interest rate, to boost the sector. It is important that we are assisted to be able to compete favourably.

 

Executive orders are good, but they have to be implemented by human beings. Policies and programmes of government are implemented by civil servants. Those in the ministries and government agencies need to be “born again”; they need to have a new orientation and understand that we are all working towards one goal

 

 

What efforts has the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria made to reach out to the government in order to tackle your challenges?
We have gone to various levels of government. For instance, the Pharmaceutical manufacturers group of MAN has gone to the Minister of Health, Minister of Industry and also the legislators for appeal, but nothing is happening. The energy that was put in was much, but because we are patriotic Nigerians, if we take a bad step, what will be the future of pharmaceutical manufacturing and those studying pharmacy and drug manufacturing in Nigeria? We should be talking about research; now is the time we need to move and get going.

How would you rate the ‘ease of doing business’ initiative? Has it created a better business environment for manufacturers, especially as it concerns imports?
No, we have yet to see an improvement in the business environment relating to exports and imports. Look at Apapa ports, for instance, the roads are in deplorable condition and there are so many hurdles in the way of doing business.
Executive orders are good, but they have to be implemented by human beings. Policies and programmes of government are implemented by civil servants. Those in the ministries and government agencies need to be “born again”; they need to have a new orientation and understand that we are all working towards one goal. I’m sure that with time, these executive orders will begin to yield a good result. But we need more executive orders because there are so many things that need to be fixed.

What are some of these executive orders that you would have loved the government to give?
An executive order to facilitate payment for goods and services procured by government. When they buy goods from you, they should pay. Government indebtedness has crippled many contractors, suppliers, and consultants. For instance, they are owing us for five years; it is not right.
There should also be an executive order to curb medical tourism, which has been a major drain on the nation’s economy. How can we sit here as giant of Africa and our people are dying on their way to India and other countries in search of quality healthcare? Why can’t they make sure our hospitals are up to standard and new ones are built so that our people can have access to quality healthcare here in the country? People are dying of the wrong diagnosis owing to poor facilities and unqualified personnel. To worsen the situation, there is corruption in the system. How can you bribe a doctor to refer a patient to India or other countries? Oh yes, this is happening.

What do you think can be a very important survival strategy that businesses should employ now, to survive in the economy?
The strategy is obviously that of cost-cutting- streamlining the products line and engaging with the government at all levels to ensure that companies and manufacturers are sustained. I also plead
with everybody to come on board, because coordination of the ministries and parastatals must be done together.

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