Who will reopen Kachia’s ginger company?

The Kachia ginger factory produced 80 tonnes of oleoresin, four tonnes of oil and 100 tonnes of powder annually as at 2000, but it closed down  a few years after, Daily Trust gathered.Successive governments made efforts aimed at ensuring the reopening of the company without results. One year after, the Kaduna State government promised to […]

The Kachia ginger factory produced 80 tonnes of oleoresin, four tonnes of oil and 100 tonnes of powder annually as at 2000, but it closed down  a few years after, Daily Trust gathered.
Successive governments made efforts aimed at ensuring the reopening of the company without results. One year after, the Kaduna State government promised to revive the company in order  to return about 30,000 workers into the labour market, some industrialists and local ginger famers still await its reopening.  
The Kachia ginger company at one time was positioned to become a major foreign exchange earner for Kaduna State and Nigeria, but it could not survive in a state where several industries have also gone down the drain, sending over 30,000 people out of work.
Malam Adamu Abubakar, the pioneer security guard and his colleague who were lucky to be retained when the company finally packed up,heaved  a sigh of relief  when the Kaduna State government announced plans to reopen the factory.
“We cleared the weeds here when we heard about the plans by the Kaduna State government to reopen the company. It’s about one year now. We’ve not heard anything,” Adamu said ,adding, “it’s more than 19 months now. I’ve not seen  a kobo as salary.”  
The last salary Malam Adamu received amounted to  N3,000 ,as against N10,000 he received  when the company was functioning.
“I want this company to work because I know what I was receiving before. When the company was working, I was receiving N10,000 and the money was coming regularly. Look at the quarters and the entire company, it’s only me and my colleague staying here. We have not received any salary for the past two years,” Abubakar said.

Like Abubakar, the people of the host community are not happy that the factory is not working. A ginger farmer working at the SST ginger company, Suleinman Baba Kwasau in Kachia LGA, said government always promised without keeping its word.  
“I’ve been working here for about seven years on a ginger flow one Mr Luka gave my boss Alhaji Sadiq Tahir, Chairman of ginger sellers in Southern Kaduna. We are surprised that a young governor that knows the problems of the youth, has not been able to take action on this matter,” he said.
“Reviving this company will create jobs and curb crises. Some commissioners came here but nothing has been done about the company. If he repairs the company, it will be an advantage to his political career. We are begging him to look inward and do justice and repair this place,” Kwasau said.
Bawa Mohammed Dangata who also worked at a ginger farm said: “We want this company to be revived ,so that youth will be employed. In Southern Kaduna no  one will abuse Senator  Makarfi because he constructed a lot of roads which we are benefiting from today. That’s why we are calling on this governor, to do something about this company.”

Members of the National Ginger Association of Nigeria (NGAN) through their President, Dr. Florence Edwards ,has commended President Goodluck Jonathan for the provision of fertilizer and ginger modern seedlings, but decried the closure of the Kachia ginger processing company, its biggest market.
The Association said during its executive meeting in Kagarko, Kaduna State that ginger farmers all over the country, especially in the core ginger producing areas in Kaduna State, have expressed gratitude to President GoodLuck Jonathan and the Federal Ministries of Agriculture and Commerce, for supplying them fertilizer and improved ginger seedlings for the first time, through the Growth Enhancement Scheme of the Agricultural Transformation Agenda.
“We want the Kachia ginger processing company to be reopened as promised by the government,” Dr Edwards said.
Records  have it that in 1981 when the ginger processing company was established, its share capital was N10 million.
Kachia Ginger Processing Company, which used  to have over 400 direct employees, owned by the Kaduna state government, has since packed up, throwing its staffers into the already saturated labour market.
The threat against what is apparently the remains of the Kachia Processing Company is real. There are  weeds from the nearby bushes surrounding the company and its premises. The overgrown ones among them were touching the roof tops of the company’s buildings, before  these were cleared by the security guards that keep watch there.
Ginger, a spicy rhizome plant, was a major national export up till the onset of the petroleum boom in the mid 1960s. Available records indicate that high production of ginger from Kaduna State made Nigeria a world producer of the product in the 1930s. Since the closure of this ginger company, the export  of same declined.

Kaduna State commissioner for commerce and Industries, Hon Joshua Shekarau Uchissa said there is no cause for alarm, as the state government is working assiduously to revive the Kachia ginger company, Zaria Pharmaceutical industries and the Ikara Tomato processing company.
He said they have met with some Indians, after the state’s privatisation committee approved a lease of some of the companies to spring field  Nigeria Limited.
“We have done the test running for the Ikara Tomato Company ,and now we are just waiting to lease it to the companies that are interested. The governor has given us the order to see how we can activate the company,  and some of our engineers are in contact  with the Hungarian Company that installed the machines at the factory, to give us the cost of repairs, so that we can move into operation. However, there are little challenges, but it will be finalized very soon.
On the Kachia ginger company, Uchissa said two companies have indicated interest to reactivate the company, but that the government is considering some other options to re activate the factory, so that while negotiations are ongoing, people should get back to work. “Government is concerned, and we have been visiting the sites and meeting the concerned persons, who are also ready to take over the reactivation and maintenance of the company,” Uchissa added.