Manufacturing firms are struggling due to free fall of the Cedi – Addo Agyekum

Founder and CEO of the Mikado Group of Companies, formally the KAMA group Dr. Michael Agyekum Addo says the current depreciation of the cedi against the dollar is collapsing several businesses.

He further indicated that the covid crises impacted heavily on most businesses.

“In terms of the economy which plummeted downwards. It affected our income, our sales dropped people were not coming to the shop itself. So we are now recovering .So for 2020/21 everything went to zero. In fact, my conference center, the KAMA conference Center which used to be so vibrant ceased” said Dr. Agyekum Addo,

He added “We had to lay off a lot of staff, so from 650, we’re now about 120 staff nationwide.

“I must confess especially the fact that almost all our raw materials are coming from outside and it’s in dollars. So if you have to pay so much money to chase, then it means price will be affected and because we don’t have the political will to stop imports, we’re going to compete internationally, so the imports that are coming in have an advantage over us.

“Most of these imports also have exemptions and the tariffs on them are very low that their prices are even cheaper than the locally made products and that makes marketing very difficult for us local manufacturers. So, we’re seeing how the government trying to see how best they can help.

“For example, If I make any liquid product and its about 95 % water, someone is also bringing in blood tonic, cough syrup, vitamins, antacids all in liquid form and were saying that please stop it, restrict it because were just paying for water which we can do. We have the capacity, that local manufacturers.

“So the blood tonic that comes in is about 10 cedi’s and what we produce all things being equal will be about 12 cedis, how can you compete so the local people will prefer to go for a cheaper one for 10 cedi’s which is equally good than the 12 cedi’s”.

Source: 3news.com