THE Central Bank of Nigeria, on Thursday, said it had frozen the bank accounts of 15 textile firms for violating the Federal Government’s ban on importation of textiles.
The Deputy Governor, Corporate Services Directorate, CBN, Edward Adamu, confirmed the development in Abuja.
He spoke at a meeting of stakeholders in the cotton and garment value chain.
Adamu said the CBN was determined to revamp the textile sector to its enviable position, adding that the sector was vital to Nigeria’s economy growth.
He said, currently, the country’s domestic demand for cotton was met through local production, thereby halting importation of cotton for the textile industry.
He noted, “Our enhanced drive toward anti-smuggling is yielding result with over 15 textile smugglers accounts frozen across the country.
“A lot of progress has been made, but at the same time, more needs to be done to ensure that we build an inclusive economy that supports domestic production of goods and services, while offering job oppotunities to teeming Nigerians.
“This assignment has been bestowed upon us all by the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR, who remains extremely supportive of the agricultural sector revolution due to its role in ensuring food security, creating jobs and stabilising the Nigerian economy.”
The apex bank, according to him, had committed over N120bn into revamping the Cotton, Textile and Garments industry value chain.
He said over 320,000 farmers had been financed by the bank between 2018 and 2020.
Edward put the expected output for seed cotton in 2020 at over 300,000 metric tons.
This, he noted, was expected to enhance the production capacity of the ginneries in producing over 102,000 metric tons of cotton lint.
With this, he expressed optimism that the expectation to meet and surpass the cotton lint requirement of the textile industries would be surpassed, The Point reports.
The CBN Director, Development Finance, Yusuf Yila, said the bank had completed the first two phases of its interventions in the textile sector.
He said, “We have completed phase one and phase two. We are where we are working with the textiles through the Bank of Industry to see how we can retool them and take the ginneries to the textile.
“CBN is really collaborating with all the agencies and the Customs. The biggest challenge is people smuggling textiles and garments.
“As you are aware, a lot of them, their accounts have been blocked. As a restitution, we are telling them to go and patronise the local textile factories.”
On what is being done to get uniform establishments to patronise local textile firms, Yila said the collaboration between the CBN and security agencies was yielding results.
In his response, the President, National Cotton Association of Nigeria, Anibe Achimugu, lauded the bank for its intervention.
