Borno plans to resuscitate ailing industries

TO address poverty and unemployment in Borno State, government is to resuscitate all dormant or closed industries, with a plan of creating 1, 000 jobs each from the state owned five industries, including NEITAL, that will mop up over 100,000 tonnes of hides and skin in the Northeast sub-region of the country, Governor Kashim Shettima has pledged.The governor made the pledge recently in Maiduguri, while inspecting BOPLAST manufacturing plant and NEITAl shoe factory in the Abaganaram ward of metropolis, along with the Commissioner of Commerce, Industry and Tourism, Dr. Asabe Villita Bashir.He said: 'This administration is ever willing to leave no stone-unturned to ensure that it addresses poverty and unemployment among the youths, so that they do not join miscreants in the perpetration of crimes and other social vices in the state.'Briefing the governor on the production problems of BOPLAS, Asabe said that the state government wholly owned the factory as a limited liability company with a share capital of N300 million.She said that if the plastic manufacturing plant was resuscitated, it would not only created more jobs, but generated more revenues, as well as boosted the economic development of the state.Speaking on the capacity utilisation of BOPLAS, the General Manager, Waziri Kagu said that the company produced plastic products such as jerry cans, bowls, kettles, water jugs, shopping bags, woven sacks of different sizes among other products used in households Borno residents.He, however, noted that some of the main problems facing the plant included erratic power supply, lack of spare parts and manpower.He said that for the company to operate at full capacity, there was the need to have double dies 65mm extruding machines, modern molds for plastic section, double Decker cutting machine, among others.Also at the NIETAL shoe factory, the General Manager, Alhaji Usman Tomsu, told the governor that between 1991 and 2010, the state government had expended N236.53 million, out of which 90 per cent of such funds were used for the payment of workers' salaries and allowances.Tomsu stated that the immediate need of the company was for the state government to approve the release of N80 million for servicing and rehabilitating the existing machines, drill of two boreholes, and installation of 500 KVA electricity transformers.
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