‘Nigeria still imports 100 percent of Polymer amid Forex constraints’

Amid forex constraints currently confronting  Nigeria occasioned by  dwindling oil resources, Umaru Ishaku, a Professor at the department of Textile Science and Technology faculty of Science at Ahmadu Bello University Zaria has said that Nigeria’s  100 percent importation of Polymer is hurting the economy and could be averted.

Umaru  spoke to BusinessDay, on the sidelines of his lecture with the theme:”New Polymers” at 2016 Special Material Lecture held in Abuja.

He said:”Two of our manufacturing plants on polymer are not performing and virtually every household in the country utilises one form of Polymer or the other. For instance, if you look at the PVC that is used in constructing pipes in households and conduit wiring you will realize that they are all made of polymer and we still import this raw materials.”

He recalled however, that “When the Central Bank of Nigeria0 (CBN) wanted to produce the Polymer notes in the past, they resorted to Australia and it costs us a billions  to print that, I guess, that is why the CBN now is laying more emphasis on Cashless policy, because of the huge cost of printing money from outside, as we lack the capacity back home to do that”

In this respect, the University don  suggested to the Federal government to increase funding and research grants  in key  areas that could boost industrialization of the country and avert collapse of industries.

The pallets of all the Pipes both for sewage, water closets, conduit wiring are 100 percent imported although the Pipes are manufactured here, but the raw materials are imported absolutely .These are some of the areas, we are suggesting to the government to invest research grants on for us to build capacity” he said.

While acknowledging the Federal Government’s effort on re-directing the economy away from oil, he suggested that Nigerian researchers and entrepreneurs could focus on:”Compounding which is where the major work is, which is done by engineering the Polymer to produce the leather and the Polyethylene that is used in producing leather bags, sachet water and other forms of plastics.

Harrison Edeh