‘Innoson vehicle assembly plant not shut’

Contrary to news making the rounds in certain quarters, the management of  Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing Company Limited (IVM), has declared that it is still producing vehicles with full complement of its workers, and has not shut the plant in Nnewi as widely rumoured. Making this clarification last week in a statement signed by Cornel Osigwe, the local auto assembler’s public relations and media assistant assured that the company is hopeful that the Federal Government would soon find a lasting solution to the challenge.

The company was reacting to some publications which purported that the plant had laid-off workers and shut down production over foreign exchange crisis.
Explaining, however, that IVM, like many other manufacturers in the country, is experiencing low production occasioned by scarcity of foreign exchange to import vital components, the statement signed by the Public Relations and Media Assistant,

Highlighting what it said is the correct position, the statement added: “Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing Co Ltd has not shut down its manufacturing plant and is not planning to do so. In as much as the company is experiencing low production due to the inability to get the required volume of FOREX to source for its vehicle components outside Nigeria, it still has absolute faith in the Federal Government and the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN’s) ability to fix FOREX scarcity problems.

“Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing Co Limited has not laid off its staff due to the low activities in production. Rather, what The chairman said was “I believe they (Federal Government) are doing something but if they can’t do anything, we will lay off some workers,
“Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing Co Ltd believes in the Federal Government’s drive to boost the manufacturing sector and is aware that this present FOREX scarce challenge is a phase that will soon pass”

The management faulted part of the reports which specifically stated: “Nigeria’s major vehicle assembly plant, Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing Company Limited (IVM), has announced its decision to shut down production due to lack of foreign exchange to import vehicle components”.
He described the reports as “a deviation from the interview (the Chairman of the Innoson Group), Innocent Chukwuma, granted to Reuters news agency which was correctly published by them, but was totally distorted by the various other news platforms”.