Furniture maker tasks government on tax reduction, enabling environment  

• Union urges financial support skilled
The Managing Director, Lifemate Nigeria Limited, Dai Derek, has tasked the Federal Government to create good policies, reduce tax to attract investors to boost the its economy system.He added that China was like Nigeria 25 years ago but today is among the leading countries in the world due to good policy.
 
Speaking at the ongoing Lifemate Trade Exhibition/Ileya Promo event in Abeokuta, tagged: “2018 Lifemate Abeokuta Trade fair”, Derek said the furniture maker is not only here to do business, but to invest, create employment, pay tax, and train Nigerians on how to produce good furniture.He however advised the government to reduce tax to attract investors, while wishing they could get all their production materials locally. He said: “The problem is that we can’t get leather materials in Nigeria, because if I get all the accessories and materials here so there will be no need to import from China or Italy.”
 
The Chairman, Ogun State Council, National Union of Civil Engineering Construction, Furniture and Wood Workers (NUCECFWW), Midian Nanle, also urged the government to create an organised furniture market to boost the manufacturing sector in Nigeria.
   
Nanle, who accused the government of lacking the willpower to create enabling environment to encourage individuals with skills to put it into practice, also called for soft loans of at least N1.5million and above to encourage people with furniture skills start up their businesses.
 
“The problem we have in Nigeria is that we don’t have the human capacity, and the government at the centre lack the will power to create the enabling environment to encourage people that have those skills to put them into practice. In this company, there are people that they have trained well, and who want to start their own business but no capital to buy machine due to high cost. So if soft loans are provided, it will encourage these people to start up something,” he said.
 
Nanle, who was impressed with the quality of material used for production, said Lifemate would be of great value to the Ogun State Government in terms of revenue generation, employment, and tax.

According to him, Lifemate is investing in Nigeria by training workers on how to operate high standard machinery that produce most of their furniture products, adding that almost all the goods are produced by Nigerians, and are only being supervised by Chinese.He further revealed that some of the materials used by the company are source locally, but the standard is Italian, and product by the Chinese.The exhibition, which took off on August 17th, will end on the 31st, with the promise of distribution of ram to customers for the Eid El Mubarak celebration.