11/07/2010 (Daily Independent) - National financial secretary and Treasurer of Plantation Owners Forum of Nigeria (POFON), Friday Okhomon Omokaro, has called on the Federal Government to stop the importation of vegetable and palm oil into the country.

Omokaro, who is aspiring to the Federal House of Representatives to represent Egor/ Ikpoba Okha federal constituency on the platform of Action Congress (AC) said the plantation owners have the capacity to produce sufficient vegetable and palm oil to meet both the individual and industrial needs of the country as well as for export.  

The aspirant, who was speaking to newsmen in Benin, however, promised to empower not less than 200 youths and over 400 women through adequate orientation and mobilisation on strategies to access agric loans in his first year in office.

The POFON national officer, who said that the plantation sector is one of the largest employers of labour at the grassroots, noted that placing embargo on importation of plantation products would contribute meaningfully to job creation programme of the Federal Government as several workers in the palm oil sector would retain their jobs without threat of retrenchment.

According to him, “right now we are still fighting for the enforcement of the ban on the importation of crude palm oil into the country because we have a lot of it in this country. Plantation sector of the economy is one of the largest employers of the grassroots workers. If you go to PRESCO right now they have not less than 15,000 workers.

“The same thing with OKOMU, IBA as well as other plantations and by the time you add up all these things you are talking of sizeable millions and multiply it by 10 years you would see the multiplier effect that this sector would have on the economy.

 “You can see right now all farmers are reducing planting now because of the high cost of production and the government is not helping matters as the tariffs on the importation is so low,  which in effect is about 30 per cent.

“If the government can increase it to a reasonable percentage, possibly 100 per cent to encourage the local farmers and if they don’t do this we would have problem in the future. Many farms and industries may be forced to close down and if they do, you can look at the teeming population that would go into the labour market.

 “Therefore, we are appealing to the governments at all levels that personal interest should be relegated when it comes to the issue of agriculture in this country”, he said.

He also declared that if elected to the National Assembly, his major priority would be to advocate the need for governments to invest in the agricultural sector, adding that any nation that cannot feed itself is not worth living in.