| …Crushed by
absence of infrastructure
By IKENNA EMEWU
Saturday, December 4, 2004
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•Engr.
Dr. Chukwiyekwu
displays two products from Nnewi industry and imported
one.
Photo: Sun News Publishing |
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The many industries in Nnewi have their product and environmental
peculiarities just like their approach to management and responses
to issues. But there is a common thread that runs through
all of them. Neglect and lack of encouragement is a bad omen
that has been allowed to terminate the dreams of the people
to turn Nnewi into a formidable industrial belt. This is mainly
through lack or total absence of infrastructure.
Infrastructural orphans
In every factory in Nnewi, there are signs of neglect and
self-effort for survival. The common evidence made Saturday
Sun ask the General Manager of the Louis Carter Industries,
Mr. Franklin Obi whether it is a status symbol for every factory
in Nnewi to construct the road that leads to the factory.
His answer was laced with anger as he asked “what kind
of status would make an investor accept to spend more money
even on a project he could have avoided or should have been
handled by the government?”
Every Nnewi manufacturer generates own power, provides own
water through boreholes, employs and pays security, constructs
the road that leads into or adjoins the one leading to its
factory. In addition, it is his duty to pay numerous taxes
and royalties to the various governments in Nigeria. The factories
rely on NEPA for about 20 per cent of its power supply. They
provide 100 per cent of water, roads and security for their
operation. One of the industries that depend on the Eleme
Petrochemical Industry, Port Harcourt told a disheartening
story of how PDP men from Abuja have sidelined them from getting
supplies of raw materials they paid for. The story is that
Eleme is producing at 30 per cent capacity, which makes it
inadequate for customers. In the face of this lapse, the politicians
still send their agents with powerful letters to corner the
little that is available and re-sell to the manufacturers
at an additional cost of N10,000 per ton, and some of these
companies buy as much as 50,000 tons at an extra cost of N50m.
Saturday Sun was told by the management of an affected company
that they complained to Eleme and was told off by the Head
of Sales who without feeling replied that “the story
of plans to retrench workers is not new to us, so if you are
to lay off some workers because you don’t have raw materials,
it is no big deal”. True to the threat, the industry
two months ago retrenched 100 workers because of the problem.
Most irresponsible
Going round Nnewi shows without doubt that the Nnewi Local
Council could just be the most irresponsible and unfeeling
in Nigeria. Saturday Sun made several attempts at the Local
Government Council office, on Owerri Road, close to the Nnewi
Central Police Station and was told severally that the council
chairman travelled to Awka. It is simply shocking that a council
that is bursting at the seams with internal revenue could
be so heartless as not to put at least one road in good condition
to encourage the hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs. The
roads in Nnewi, most of which should be under the powers of
the LG to construct are just death traps. No single street
in Nnewi is accessible. People go through hell to move around
in the town, yet every corner of Nnewi is a market full of
traders, banks, artisans, transporters and the manufacturers
that pay one form of tax to the council. The only road in
good shape in Nnewi is the Owerri road that runs through the
Nnobi road leading up to Enugu-Ukwu at one axis and Okija
at the other end. It is a state road and still under construction.
Likewise, the two federal roads that link Nnewi are in very
bad shape. So, this emerging industrial town is trapped by
irresponsible governments that voice out plans and policies
to boost the economy without any action.
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