By Ike Uchechukwu

CALABAR—CROSS-RIVER State House of Assembly, CRSHA, has called on the management of Larfage Holcim Africa Plc to implement the 80 per cent Local Content Policy, LCP, by employing more indigenes of the state, especially from its host communities.

Speaker of the House of Assembly, Hon. John Gaul Lebo, who spoke to NDV, said the lawmakers were aware that Cross-Riverians in the organized private sector “are less than three percent and it is not supposed to be so.”

Hundreds of youths from the host communities of the cement firm in Akamkpa and Odukpani local government areas of the state recently protested non-implementation of 80 per cent local content policy by the company and gave it a 14-day ultimatum to commence action or they would shut down the factory.

“We are aware that if you check the local content of how the organized labour is employing our people, it is less than three per cent. I went  to Lafarge Africa on oversight function  and discovered that the person, who answers phone calls, is a lady from India.

“What we have been trying to do as a House is to come up with the Cross River State Employment Bureau Law, it is a local content law, which is  domesticated from federal law to insist that Lafarge in its new second line of production should  employ at least 40 per cent out of the 100 per cent of Cross- Riverians, “ he hinted.

According to him, “They were doing recruitment in Lagos and the government had to stop them. You have to employ graduates from the state, as I speak with you,   the cement company will do the employment in January, let them apply the 80 percent local content policy.

Lebo, however, insisted that for young people in the state to remain relevant in the scheme of things, they must be creative and think outside the box.

“We do not have the service content to be able to provide services to these people. The absence of ideas, capacity and absence of technology has being responsible for poverty. Young people must be trained in modern educational knowledge. I am not talking about studying philosophy and coming out to quote Abraham Lincoln, but given the capacity to deliver, having an edge to perform by having capacity to deliver quality service,” he said.