Minister for Labour and
Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige has expressed surprise over the sheer size and sophistication of the Calabar Garment Factory built by Governor Ben Ayade of Cross River State.
Ngige made the remark as he paid a visit to the garment factory in Calabar in company of the State Governor, Senator Ben Ayade, while in the State to commission the South-South Zonal Skills Acquisition Centre.
He was dumbfounded by what he saw given the fact that Cross River State is among states in Nigeria that receive the least allocation from the federation account.
“I am in this Calabar Garment Factory and the word to use is dumbfounded. I am indeed dumbfounded by what I see here. For a state that receives the least allocation, only second to Osun State from the federation account, to achieve this is amazing.
“It is pure financial engineering by Governor Ben Ayade to have successfully built and completed this giant garment factory.”
The former parliamentarian and Governor of Anambra State said, “This factory is an employment centre, so to say, because at each shift, at least one thousand persons are engaged out of three shifts in a given day. For three thousand persons to be taken out of the army of unemployed is a startling number accounting for garment and textile sector. This is besides the humongous number that will be engaged in cotton farm located in the Ogoja and Obudu axis from what I saw in the work plan.”
Commending what he described as Ayade’s economic wizardry, the former Anambra State governor stated, “we cannot take it away from Ayade. He has done pretty well. I must commend him and at the same time recommend his style and zeal to other governors. He does not come to Abuja cap in hand like most of his colleagues are doing.”
“We can put an end to the cap in hand or what I call ‘feeding bottle’ syndrome which other governors have reduced themselves to if they can imbibe the Ayade example. We want that to stop. He has also proved himself to be workers’ friendly too because apart from paying workers’ salary every month, he pays promptly too. From what I have heard from the workers’ here, he has not exposed me to be going to negotiate for three working days in a week work with workers.”, he said.
On partnership with the state government on the garment factory, Ngige said, “from what I have seen here, all our skills trainees of our Skills Development Programme will be brought here for training. This garment factory will now be used as an apprenticeship centre for our skills trainees. And because the South-South Zonal centre of the National Directorate of Employment is in Calabar, both Cross Riverians and trainees from other states of the zone will be trained here.
Friday Nwagbara, Calabar