Uche Usim, Abuja
In line with its zero tolerance stance on trade breaches, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Thursday said it has frozen bank accounts of 15 textile smugglers to serve as a deterrent to others who may want to keep bringing contraband.
This is as the bank has committed N120 billion into the Cotton, Textile and Garments (CTG) industry value chain.
The Deputy Governor, Corporate Services Directorate of the apex bank, Mr. Edward Lamatek Adamu made the disclosure in Abuja at a
meeting of stakeholders in cotton and garment value chain.
To atone for their atrocities, the undisclosed smugglers were advised to patronise local textile firms to grow the economy.
CBN’s action draws inspiration from Federal Government’s Executive Order 003, which is aimed at supporting local content in public procurement. It expressly states that, all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) shall grant preference to local manufacturers of goods and service providers, in their procurement of goods and services.
Adamu pointed out that the CBN was determined to revamp and restore the textile sector to its pre-eminent position, describing the sector as one of pillars of the nation’s economy.
He said over 320,000 farmers had been financed by the bank between 2018-2020. Edward put expected output for seed cotton in 2020 at over 300,000 metric tons.
“This is expected to enhance the production capacity of the ginneries in producing over 102,000 metric tons of cotton lint and this is expected to meet and surpass the cotton lint requirement of our textile Industries.
“As you are aware, in the 1970’s and early 1980’s, Nigeria was home to Africa’s largest textile industry, with over 180 textile mills in operations, which employed close to over 450,000 people. By today, if we had nurtured and encouraged the textile industry, that sector will be employing millions”
“The textile industry at that time, was the largest employer of labour in Nigeria after the public sector, contributing over 25% of the workforce in the manufacturing sector. This sector supported the clothing needs of the Nigerian populace, as our markets were filed with locally produced textiles from companies such as United Textiles in Kaduna, Supertex Limited, Afprint, International Textile Industry (I.T.I), Texlon, Aba Textiles, Asaba Textile Mills Ltd, Enpee and Aswani Mills amongst several others.The Banks interventions in Cotton Textile and Garment sector is designed to resuscitate and return the Textile Industries back to its glorious days, creating jobs, diversification of Nigeria’s economy and achieving self-sufficiency in cotton production”, he said.
In an interview with the media, CBN Director Development Finance Yusuf Yila said that the bank has completed phase one phase two of the interventions in textile sector.
“We have completed phase one and phase two. We are where we are working with the textiles through the Bank of Industry to see how we can retool them and take the ginneries to the textile. CBN is really collaborating with all the agencies and the Customs. The biggest challenge is people smuggling textiles and garments. As you are aware a lot of them their accounts have been blocked. As a restitution, we are telling them to go patronize the local textile factories”.
On what is being done to get uniform establishments embrace patronising local textile firms, Yila said that the synergy had been on.
“We are working with them. We have taken them to all the textile companies to see that the quality meets their standard”.
In his response, Anibe Achimugu, President, National Cotton Association of Nigeria lauded the bank for its intervention.
“As we speak, we have excess cotton in warehouses because the current capacity of the textile companies are not able to utilize the cotton for now. But of course since the CBN is intervening in the textile companies, they should be able to improve their capacities going forward”, he said.