The President of the Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, has blamed policy summersault and near absence of power for Nigeria’s low-level of industrialisation.
Dangote voiced this while hosting the Zambian Minister of Energy, Makozo Chikote, and some other officials of the East African country at the Dangote refinery in Lekki, Lagos State.
The Africa’s richest man said the twin problems made doing business abroad more rewarding.
“One of the problems of industrialisation is inconsistencies in government policies, where, just like a footballer, you’re about to score the goal, and the government will remove the goalpost and point behind you that the goalpost is behind. So, you have to now turn. Once you turn back, you have a lot of challenges to get to that goalpost again,” the Africa’s richest man said.
He added: “If there’s no power, there won’t be growth. For example, anything I’m going to do abroad will cost me maybe 30 per cent cheaper than here, because abroad is plug-and-play. You just go, no infrastructure construction. You just build a factory, and you connect to the network; that’s all.
“That’s why, if you look at it today, I tell you that our most profitable cement factory is in Ethiopia because there’s no investment in power. They gave us power at the same rate for five years. So, we plan, it’s a one-price electricity continuously.”
