- Labour Pushes for Anti-smuggling Special Task Force
The National Union of Textile, Garment and Tailoring Workers of Nigeria (NUTGTWN), has called on the Federal Government to institute a special task force against smuggling.
Its General Secretary, said the industry has recorded 700 job losses to retrenchment in some of the remaining factories.
Comrade Aremu said: “There is high influx of counterfeit and smuggled goods due to weak enforcement of import prohibition policy. The Federal Government should do what is being done on rice importation, to textile. We need a Special Task Force against smuggling just as it is on rice.
”In spite of the efforts by the Federal Government, the textile industry is yet to come alive. Only recently, the industry recorded about 700 direct job losses due to retrenchment in some of the remaining factories.”
Aremu commended President Muhammadu Buhari for his commitment to reviving the textile industry, adding that Buhari made textile industry and the manufacturing sector’s revival his cardinal campaign programme. He said through the activist facilitation, President Buhari administration has initiated a number of measures aimed at industry revival.
Aremu said there could not be development without industry. Only industry can provide sustainable jobs and living wages and necessary revenue for the government to provide the needed infrastructure for development, he said.
He said for a diverse country like Nigeria, industry is also a unifier.
‘’There was once a Nigeria in which we have textile industry in all the geo-political zones of the country.This is why our union is Pan-Nigerian,’’ he said. He said for Africa to meet the Sustainable Development Goal, 2030, African Continent must innovate and industrialise.
“Africa must copy China’s industrialisation drive, which has within 20 years moved over 500 million people out of poverty through sustainable employment and wage-led manufacturing and industrialisation. Africa must make what it consumes, otherwise it will be consumed by the rest of the world,” he said.
He also commended the Executive Orders issued by the Federal Government in line with President Buhari’s promise on the ease of doing business.
“We acknowledge and commended the Federal Government of Nigeria for launching the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP). However, it is surprising the National Cotton, Textile & Garment (CTG) policy was not built into the ERGP.
“The government should ensure the implementation of Cotton, Textile and Garment (CTG) policy as adopted by the Federal Government since 2014. The major highlight in that policy is that we must ensure that there is uninterrupted electricity supply to textile industry, as well as other manufacturing industry,”he said.
