By Victor Ahiuma-young

Organised labour has said the performance of the Nigerian textile industry remains at low ebb in 2014 due to lack of an enabling environment and inconsistency in government policy.

In a review of the performance of the sector in 2014 through the National Union of Textile Garment and Tailoring Workers of Nigeria, NUTGTWN,  labour said key problems affecting the industry include persistent electricity supply crisis, inadequate raw materials, government’s inability to regulate imports, high cost of production inputs, unrestrained importation of fake and substandard textiles from China, low patronage of made in Nigeria textiles, security challenge, high interest rate and recent devaluation of the Naira.

Speaking through the President of NUTGTWN Mr. Oladele Hunsu and the union’s General Secretary, who also is a Vice President of Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, Mr. Issa Aremu, organized labour, stated, “Capacity utilisation in the industry remains below 50 per cent and the growth has been stagnant since 2012. The government had talked about a new textile policy in February 2013 however there has been no progress. Unless effective steps are taken by the government to revive the industry, gains achieved in 2010 will be lost and result in job losses, thus aggravating the unemployment situation. In 2015, we demand for patriotic industrial policies through direct mass actions to protect domestic industry.  It is time we grow the non-oil sector.”

Speaking on 2015 national budget, both Oladele and Aremu said “the coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala recently presented the 2015 budget to the National Assembly on behalf of the President.  The N4.74 trillion budget was based on the benchmark of $65 per barrel, 2.27 million barrels per day and exchange rate of N165 to a dollar. At $65 per barrel, the budget still confirms that Nigeria is an oil dependent economy contrary to the claim of the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy.

“Sustainable budgets are the ones based on revenue arising from real sector of the economy namely domestic manufacturing and exportation of finished goods. The national assembly in debating this budget proposal should put policies that will grow the real sectors of the economy and in particular ensure that Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, lowers the interest rate and stop the free fall of the Naira which will undermine purchasing power of the working people. They should also make sure the budget captures practical measures on reducing cost of governance which must start with drastic reduction of pay and allowances of the Executive and legislature.”

They called on politicians and political parties to think more on how to improve the national economy ahead of 2015 general elections, saying “As the race for 2015 begins, we urge all the political parties and their candidates to operate based on the spirit and content of the constitution.  The language of political contest should also be constitutional.”