Nigerian union warns against plant closure amid recession

Nigeria's economic recession had raised unemployment, an official with the National Union of Iron and Steel Workers (NUISW) said Wednesday, blaming continuous closure of plants.

Some 3,000 of its members lost jobs in the last quarter of 2015 following closure of steel companies in the West African country, Kasimu Kadiri, General Secretary of the union told reporters in Lagos.

Kadiri was reacting to plans to shut the biggest pipe factory, SCC Nigeria Limited, due to the economic recession.

The pipe factory inaugurated a 280,000-tonne modern steel pipe manufacturing in Oct, 2015 in Ushafa, Abuja, Nigeria's capital.

However, after staying idle for months, the government announced plan to close it.

The union leader said continuous closure of steel companies had negatively affected the steel sector, especially its workers.

He appealed to the government to stop importation of finished steel products to allow local production to thrive.

According to him, government should also create an enabling environment for local producers to grow to reduce the number of unemployed people.

Nigeria's economy officially entered recession in September. Figures released last week by the National Bureau of Statistics further showed a weak macroeconomic performance when the gross domestic product (GDP) in real terms contracted by 2.24 percent year-on-year in Q3.

The current recession has left Nigeria with a bevy of recalcitrant problems ranging from surging inflation to depleted foreign reserves to weaker Naira.

The oil sector, which is Nigeria's mainstay, is dented by the vagaries of global oil price, the drop in local production of crude oil and militants' activities in the oil-producing region.

With the drastic drop in oil revenues, Nigeria is facing additional challenge in financing gap in public revenues estimated at about 20 billion U.S. dollars every year. Endit