Declare emergency in power sector now – Adedibu
From YINKA FABOWALE. Ibadan
Thursday, July 23, 2009

Worried by the high rate at which Nigerian industries are relocating to other African countries, following energy crisis in the nation, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Industry, Senator Kamorudeen Adedibu, has charged the Federal Government to declare emergency in the power sector without further delay to save the industrial sector from total collapse.

Senator Adedibu, who spoke with journalists in Ibadan on Monday, lamented that last year alone, over 25 industries moved out of Nigeria to other countries due to lack of enduring infrastructure, particularly power supply.
Furthermore, he expressed concern that Nigeria can barely boast of five functional textile industries presently whereas there were over 175 textile firms in the country in the early 1980s.

He declared:  “It is a shame.  It is really a shame.  And it is a bad omen for our country.  And all these are happening in the face of the Year 20: 20-20 Agenda.  Hence, we have to really focus on industry.  We should note that for each industry that closes down, we are not talking of less than 20,000 to 30,000 employment.  The textile industry in a few years back was employing over 300,000 workers.  But now, we cannot boast of more than 30,000 workers engaged in the textile industry. 

The question we should be asking ourselves is where are those 270,000 workers presently engaged?”
Senator Adedibu then charged President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua to put utmost priority into the promotion of industrialisation in Nigeria and re-invigorate the sector in the implementation of his 7-point agenda.  Specifically, he enjoined President Yar’Adua to give the Nigerian industries leverage in terms of energy subsidy and tax grace as incentives to checkmate exodus of local industries to other countries.  He also called for sanctions against importers of fake products just as he warned against turning Nigeria to a dumping ground of imported goods.

On the N70 billion textile industries intervention fund, Senator Adedibu stated that the Senate Committee on Industry at its public hearing was still expecting three institutions namely the Bank of Industry, the Nigerian Export Import Bank (NEXIM) and the United Bank for Africa (UBA) to appear and shed some light as the passage of the money was between the trio, just as he maintained that the National Assembly was determined to unravel the mysteries surrounding the whereabouts of textiles intervention fund.

According to him, at the last two-day public hearing of the Senate Committee on the Textile Intervention Fund, all the stakeholders were all busy exonerating their bodies.  He, however, hinted that there would be another round of public hearing on the matter today during which the remaining three major stakeholders in the sector are expected to appear to testify.

“We were able to get the fact that the intervention fund was not with the Finance Ministry.  All what we are waiting for is for the remaining three stakeholders to come and clear the air on the whereabouts of the N70 billion intervention fund,” he said.