BUSINESS DAY
Imagine interviewing in a company, and you get to know at the last stage of the interview that current employees of the company are unhappy, citing unpaid salaries and an unsupportive work environment as their reasons for wanting to leave.
Would you still want to join the company? It is the same for investors.
For a country grappling with high levels of poverty and badly needed foreign investments and lack of jobs, investors expect the government to create an enabling environment for the private sector to thrive.
But that’s not happening. Nigerian business leaders and top corporate executives say the standoff between Aliko Dangote, president of Dangote Group, and Nigeria’s oil industry regulators over a plethora of issues regarding the project that has created at least 100,000 jobs is among a thousand and one ways of discouraging investors.
Dangote Refinery has created twice the number of jobs jointly generated by Apple’s contract manufacturers and component suppliers, including Foxconn, Wistron and Pegatron, in India in two years.
Its jobs are equivalent to what China’s biggest palm oil producer, Julong, promised to create in Africa in three years.
The refinery will earn over $25 billion in revenues and exports.
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