Rubber producers, marketers will create 52,000 direct, 16,000 indirect jobs - NARPPMAN boss
Peter Igbinosun, national president of Rubber Producers, Processors and Mar ke t e r s As soc i at i on of Niger i a (NARPPMAN), has disclosed that his association alone, if given the necessary support, will provide direct employment for 52,000 people yearly and 520,000 in ten years.
“It will also provide indirect employment for 16,000 people through service provision and contracts. It will open up rubber industrialisation in the states through establishment of factories and cottage industries. This will further open up opportunities for more employments and economic empowerment,’’ he stated
Speaking to BDSUNDAY in an interview,
Igbinosun said the rubber industry has not been given the necessary attention by the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), and he appealed for collaboration.
“As concerned operators and contributors to the development of the nation’s economy, we wish to draw the attention of the NDDC to the development of rubber and its value chain in the Niger Delta Region,” he said.
According to him, “As one of the country’s cash crops that has
over 50 by-products, its values cut across all sectors of the economy, a foreign exchange earner, a contributor to the National GDP, and a massive employer of labour.”
He said that Rubber was also an environmental friendly crop, an internationally sought-after non-perishable commodity.
“It is a strategic material because it cannot be replaced by synthetic rubber in most important applications,” he added.
He lamented that despite the foregoing attributes and the premium that highly industrialised nations placed on this time-tested natural raw
materials, successive Nigerian governments have by act of omission or commission paid less emphasis on its development.
“The overt neglect of this sub-sector not withstanding its important contributions to our economy, has become worrisome.
Niger Delta States (Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Edo, Delta, Ondo, Rivers and Bayelsa States) produce over 85percent of the total rubber production in Nigeria. Most of the Rubber factories are also located in this region. The presence of Agro Rubber – multinational Companies
( Michelin Plantations, now Rubber Estates Nigeria Limited, Pamol Ltd, Enghaut Plantation Ltd, Okomu Rubber Plantation, Royal Farms and Estates Ltd, Imoniyamen Holdings Ltd, etc) are all located in this region,” he noted.
Explaining further, he stated that most of the plantations were planted in the early sixties by the defunct Eastern Region and are no longer economically viable due to old age and outdated clones.
“Some of the factories are either moribund or producing far less than the production capacity due to insufficient raw materials,” he said.