The Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Group of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (PMG-MAN) is lamenting that the industry is in a worse position now than before the Federal Government’s executive order on pharmaceutical inputs that temporarily suspends VAT payments for two years.
Oluwatosin Jolayemi, the Chairman of the PMG-MAN / Managing Director of Daily Need Group, who bore the frustrations of the group, said that manufacturers have not begin to reap the benefits because of the delay in its implementation.
He said : ” On the executive order, we’re still waiting for the implementation. Now, without implementation, the executive order is still on paper.
The fact that it has been gazetted, (does not mean) it’s going to be recognised by the Nigerian Customs Service.
The executive order’s implementation must be agreed on with all the Ministries, Departments, and Agencies, and the Comptroller-General of Customs ought to send it to his commands. And it’s until that time that manufacturers can begin to reap the benefits. Now, how long is it going to take for the implementation guidelines to come out?
Even after the implementation guideline comes out – from the Ministry of Finance to the Comptroller-General of Customs? And for the Comptroller-General of Customs to write a letter to his commands.
On distributors expectation to price drops, Jolayemi noted: “The narrative in the market is that we’re already importing raw materials or APIs at zero per cent, machines at zero per cent, and we’re not paying VAT, which is a farce.
So the markets – and I’m talking about the distributors or the drug traders – are forcing the manufacturers to drop prices or they would not carry our stock.
So we’re forced to continue to drop prices, even though we have not gained from the executive order. So head or tail, the average manufacturer loses. And that impacts our bottom line because your margin lowers.
The markets expect that there should be price drops, believing that the benefits of the executive order have taken effect right from the day it was announced. So, there’s no way we’re not worse off, strictly speaking.
We are thankful for the executive order, we just hope that it will be implemented quickly enough. But in the interim, that implementation has not even taken place, and we’re the ones suffering in silence. That is the truth.