Marauding touts and industry regulation
Industry players in the country are beset by motley of internal and external challenges. The age-long debilitating state of infrastructure, with its resultant effects on cost of production, is yet to improve. There is still stiff competition from imports, some of which are cheap, and to say the least, inferior.
The problem of poor access to funds is also another big clog in the wheel, owing to several factors like preference of banks to lend to the government rather than individuals, high interest rate, identity crisis, among others. Some also pass through a lot of hurdles to source their raw materials, locally or internationally.
However, one additional and disturbing bottleneck many industrial concerns face in the country at the moment is high number of real and “fake” regulators. For instance, it is still difficult for manufacturers to clearly demarcate the thin line between the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) and another agency like the Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON). This is, perhaps, not limited to manufacturing industries as there is also semblance in the aviation sector.
Manufacturing industries in the country would, probably, have been reticent about regulatory pressure had it not been hijacked by marauding and terror-looking fellows who wear the garb of government officials but are indeed impostors, touts without clear addresses.
Their hoax is so advanced that they move from one manufacturing industry to another, demanding regulatory fees and charges of different nomenclatures.
Like bees, they often move in a group, perhaps to underscore their genuineness and seriousness. More often than not, their ferocious outlook end up intimidating these already-beaten manufacturers into parting with huge amounts, thus adding insult to their already festered injuries.
Investigations at a particular multinational manufacturing industry in Lagos reveal that, over twenty-one of such hurriedly organised groups had been there amid claims that they were either from the Lagos State government or from office of the ministry of industry, trade and investment or even from the local governments or local council development authorities.
One common thing about these touts is that they are prepared, as they come with receipts and documents meant to authenticate their identities. In many of these cases, these fellows would give ultimatum to the firms and threaten sanctions and penalties.
This therefore raises a serious question as to who these fellows are and where they are from. Who sent them? To whom do they render accounts at the end of the day?
It is therefore germane to state that security agencies, especially the police, should intervene in this sorry situation. On the other hand, company security agents should establish regular contact with law enforcement agents so as to report whenever such people are around.
The real regulators should not sit back and allow touts to hijack their functions and put them in bad light. Investigations should also be made to verify if these touts are perpetrating their nefarious acts with the illicit co-operation of staff of regulatory bodies.
All should be done by concerned government agencies to save businesses from the embarrassment that come with the activities of these touts who claim to be regulators.
If nothing is done appropriately and quickly too this ugly trend has the capacity to scare investors away, thus derailing the quest for the country’s industrial revolution.