NLC,TUC write Yar’Adua over textile industry

Soji-Eze Fagbemi, Abuja

Senate President, David Mark (second left),
presenting an award to Governor Sule Lamido
of Jigawa State (right), for being the first governor
to institutionalise social security scheme in the
country, at the national conference on social security
organised by the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund
(NSITF) in Abuja on Monday. With them are the
NSITF Managing Director, Dr. Enukora Joe Okoli
(second right) and the Minister of Labour, Dr. Hassan
Lawal (left). Photo: Soji-Eze Fagbemi, Abuja.

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) have expressed concern over the fortunes of the textile industry with the recent closure of the United Nigeria Textile Limited (UNTL), Kaduna.

To this end, the unions have written to President Umaru Yar’ Adua to intervene so as to save the industry from collapse.

In the letter signed by the NLC president, Comrade Abdulwaheed Omar, and his TUC counterpart, Peter Esele, the unions said the effect of the closure of the UNTL could only be appreciated by considering the fact that it hitherto directly employed 5,000 people, in addition to the numerous ohters on the employment of service-providers, contractors and distributors.

The letter read in part: “It is a matter of grave regret that the closure of the UNTL and other previous ones has not elicited the response of the President, which should have been the case if there was sufficient appreciation of the labour absorbsion and wealth-creation potentials of the textile industry.

Sir, nothing short of your immediate personal intervention can save this industry, which is now at its death-bed stage.

“With the closure of the UNTL, it is obvious that there is the need for the Federal Government to declare the textile industry a disaster zone and to mobilise incentives, funding and protective measures to bail out the industry.

“Given the magnitude of the crises confronting the industry, the individual operators are totally incapable of mobilising the means for their survival.

To start with, the crisis has been the direct result of unfavorable public policies and failure of public authorities to protect the industry and arrest smuggling.

“Sir, the first area of intervention should be to confront the large-scale smuggling and dumping of imported textile fabric into the country. Some attempt had been made in the past under your predecessor to tighten the borders, but this was usually frustrated by politically brokered concessions to smugglers, including the release of impounded goods.

“However, it is sad that five months into your tenure, the situation has worsened, as large-scale smuggling of textile is now virtually a daylight affair commences immediately and if the fund is well supplemented.”

ASSBIFI keeps mum over court order on insurance recapitalisation

Rasheed Komolafe, Lagos

The Association of Senior Staff of Banks, Insurance and Financial Institutions (ASSBIFI) has said that it would keep silent over court order on the stoppage of insurance re-capitalisation.

The National President of the association, Comrade Sanni Lasisi, told newsmen in Lagos recently that the union would not make any statement until the court took a final decision on the issue.

A federal high court in Abuja on October 4 stopped the insurance recapitalisation which began in September 2005.

Lasisi explained that Nicon Insurance and Alliance and General Insurance Plc dragged the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) to court to ask for the amendment of the Insurance Act before any form of recapitalisation.

He said that the court granted the prayers of the two companies on the ground that Section 9 (2) of the Insurance Act which empowered NAICOM to increase the capital base of the insurance companies in Nigeria had not been amended.

He added that the National Assembly must pass an amendment to the Act before the capital base could be increased by NAICOM.

The ASSBIFI president explained that “recapitalisation only focused on structures built by insurance companies and not the capital, while re-verification ensures that a company has sufficient fund to invest into a business.”

He advised that the method of reform carried out in the banking sector should be replicated in insurance sector so as to enhance development.