It could have been another sad case of another indigenous company shutting down and laying off thousands of workers in the process, if not for timely intervention by the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), reports Sun News.
Unlike the common excuse usually given for shut down of companies in this period is lack of forex, high operational costs and low sales volume. However, textile company, Nichemtex, could have shut down due to disconnection by Ikeja Electricity Distribution Company.
The N400 million a month electricity bill that the company was receiving from IKEDC led to the company’s threat to close shop and sack 3,000 workers. Workers however took the matter into their hands and protested at the MAN headquarters over the non-inclusion of Nichemtex on the list of manufacturers eligible for a lower billing rate.
“Though our company is not owing, but because we are not on the MAN list, the distribution company had disconnected us on November 17 and since then we have been on diesel, but our management said they could no longer do this and threatening to close down. So, we have to take our destiny in our hands,” one of the protesting workers said.
Although MAN Corporate Affairs Manager, Olusegun Osidipe, explained that it would have been impossible to list all the members in the list, he followed them to the electricity company to resolve the issue and IKEDC promised to restore power to the company.
The immediate and active response from MAN is something government should learn from. Several complicated situations in the country today could have been averted if prompt and decisive action had been taken by the leaders at the helm of government.
