The Director General of Nigerian Textile Garment and Tailoring Employers, Dr. Hamma Kwajafa has decried Nigeria’s poor infrastructure as the bane of Nigeria’s economic development, noting that the country’s foreign direct investment drive cannot succeed without critical infrastructure such as power in place.
Addressing the 35th Annual Nation’s National Education Conference of National Union of Textile Garment and Tailoring Workers of Nigeria (NUTGTWN) on Tuesday in Kaduna, with the theme; ‘the Future of Work in the Nigeria Textile and Garment Industry’, Kwajafa said South Africa’s economy is doing better than Nigeria’s because of abundant electricity.
According to him, South Africa with population of just 60 million people, can boast of 50,000 megawatts of electricity, while Nigeria with population of over 200 million people is battling with 7,000 megawatts of electricity. “We say Nigeria is the giant of Africa, but infrastructure is our biggest challenge. Go to South Africa, they have 50,000 megawatts of electricity for a population of 60 million people. We are 200 million Nigeria, but only 7,00 megawatts. How can that work for the industry? That cannot drive a prosperous economy.
“All dealers of textile materials now go to China to buy polyester fabrics and in Nigeria, they are asking us to use backward integration; that we have to buy cotton. And this polyester can be produced in Nigeria, but our refineries are not refining in Nigeria for us to get the raw material. The refineries are exporting jobs. How can we have four refineries and none is working? But an individual, Dangote could build a refinery. Why can’t our own work? It is nothing but corruption.
“And we are having high petrol price. We need to occupy the refineries, NLC ought to go on strike to demand that refineries work, not when somebody is slapped. We must fight to ensure that, we have adequate infrastructures; this power must work for us, without that we cannot have new jobs and prosperous economy. The reason dollar is growing higher everyday against the Naira is because we are not exporting. Instead, we are the highest importer of champagne. We are busy consuming what we don’t produce, giving others job that cannot help us,” he said.
President of the Textile Workers’ Union, Comrade John Adaji, in his keynote address at the Education Conference called on the Federal Government to take drastic steps to save the textile sector by tightening up of the nation’s borders to discourage smuggling of textile and other materials into the country. He also called for increase in import duties for finished textile products, granting of tax waivers to local industries, provision of infrastructure such as energy and provision of forex to import raw materials among other measures.
According to him: “Today, the cotton, textile and garment sub-sector of the economy which used to be the second largest employer of labour after the public sector is on steady decline due to company closures and massive loss of jobs. Massive and indiscriminate importation of textile products has become the order of the day. It is time to address decisively the perennial challenges facing the textile industry particularly smuggling and electricity supply. We also urge government at all levels to direct their procurement policies towards patronage of made in Nigeria textile fabrics in line with the executive order of the previous administration,” he said.
