Food and Beverage |
In what may be termed a fallout of the current forex
crisis rocking Nigeria’s economy,Organized Labour, yesterday,expressed
fear that the food, beverage and tobacco sector of the nation’s economy
was on the verge of shutting down .
This is with over three million jobs becoming at risk due to the
inability of companies to source foreign exchange to import raw material
for operations.
Already,major companies in the sector, such as ,7-UP Bottling
Company Plc, Nigerian Breweries Limited,Nigerian Flour Mills, Guinness
Plc, Nigerian Bottling Company, Friesland Campina Wamco Plc, among
others, have sought for discussions with labour on retrenchment of
workers.
Reports indicate that in the last three months, no fewer than 1,500
workers had been sacked in the sector as employers seek ways of coping
with foreign exchange crisis, among other challenges.
Speaking to newsmen in Lagos,officials of Food, Beverage and
Tobacco Senior Staff Association, FOBTOB, called for Government’s
intervention on the crisis if the jobs of the over three million are to
be saved.
President of FOBTOB, Quadri Olaleye, claimed that employers in the
sector had devised every opportunity to sack workers, adding that
between the 2012 and the first half of 2015, over 3,000 workers were
sacked in the guise of re-engineering, restructuring, right sizing,
downsizing, redundancy and re-organisation. He lamented that over the
years, the same excuse of difficult business terrain, dwindling profit,
irregular and insufficient power supply, and so on had been given.
He said: “The current situation has reached a pathetic level, because
it seems all the employers in our sector are in competition with each
other on who can lay off the most workers. “Every company is now calling
for a downsizing of the workforce, and this time under the guise of
lack of foreign exchange due to the Federal Government’s recent policy
on foreign exchange. “We are aware that not all the raw materials used
in our industry can be sourced locally.
Where they can be found, they are mostly not available in commercial quantity. “That is why it is imperative that the government, through the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, takes a second look at the policy on foreign exchange to avoid shutting down the companies in our industry.”
According to him, companies mostly hit by the crisis are intellectually lazy to engage in research development on alternative sources of raw materials.
Where they can be found, they are mostly not available in commercial quantity. “That is why it is imperative that the government, through the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, takes a second look at the policy on foreign exchange to avoid shutting down the companies in our industry.”
According to him, companies mostly hit by the crisis are intellectually lazy to engage in research development on alternative sources of raw materials.
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