The Ebonyi State government had announced the relocation of the rice mill located in the capital territory to three sites acquired by the government at Ikwo, Oso-Edda and Iboko without any formal memo to the millers’ association.
This, therefore, prompted the Chairman, Abakaliki Rice Mill Owners Industrial Enterprises, Deacon Joseph Ununu to call on the government to reconsider the deadline given to them and extend it to over one year to enable them recover from the economic hardship the relocation would cause them. Ununu told Daily Sun that “since the announcement started running on air, amplified by newspaper publications we were gripped with mixed feelings, especially as we are left with no information concerning the relocation process.
How we built the mill over the years All we do as individuals is to levy ourselves to embark on any projects that are capital intensive which are located within the rice mill. As you can see, this one storey building is the office complex of the company built by the association which we levied ourselves to build. You can also see the main gate and others gates which were built by the association, we levied ourselves to build them; so also were lockup stalls which we built for our customers and traders to have a better place to operate because our business is not something to be done in the open space.
If there is too much rain it will damage our product so also when there is too much sun, it will make our rice to be over dry. Then at the milling side, we have over 260 buildings containing 12 milling machines each and that is where we use to mill our rice; from there you get to our mammy market which we built for our customers who come to patronize our product.
We deemed it necessary that when you come to this place to buy our rice there could be need for you to buy other ingredients to help you prepare your rice and that is why all the ingredients needed for it are sold there; even they sell garri, vegetable and other condiments. We also have our motorized borehole built within the rice mill.
We levied each other to build the borehole. So, also is our toilet system which we built through levy to construct the four rooms’ toilet system; that have two rooms for the men and the other two for the females. All these projects are our joint property. Another one that pains almost everybody and which is a big threat to the economic survival of members is the order from the state government for the relocation of the industry.
Actually it is a very big problem to relocate; it is never an easy job, even if you are to relocate from where you live, it has never been an easy thing as many things will be involved and that is why we are confused as we don’t know from where to start which has forced us to meet with the state government only on February 24th when we succeeded in securing audience with the state governor, Chief Martin Elechi where we presented our problem and made all our requests known to him.
However, as at today nothing has been done over our request. But I thank the governor for the little he has done by giving us two months grace to relocate because he had earlier given us till March ending as deadline, but after the meeting where we made our problems known to him, he gave us additional two months that will expire in May, which is not equally enough because one cannot use two months to build alternative place that can accommodate the entire complex because you could imagine as I stated earlier how the 260 blocks with 12 machines in each block could be built within so short a time.
Relocation order The order for relocation was over the media as there was no written document from government to the rice millers and as I am talking to you government has not written to the millers to relocate; it is only on air and newspaper publications that the instruction was given that we should relocate giving us March as deadline. But after our meeting with the governor to give us more time and for him to invite independent property evaluators to evaluate the property and pay us adequate compensation the governor rather extended it to May which is not equally enough for us to move out from here.
New site Even at the place which government said we should relocate, there are no infrastructure to accommodate us as one building only is standing in each of the three locations which we even asked him if the buildings were enough to accommodate us and he was plain to state that they are for the government use where its machines will be installed.
So, from the foregoing, there is none for us there and that is our problem. It is not that we are refusing to obey government instruction; we are ready to relocate; but the question is, where do we relocate to since there are no buildings for us and what happens to our properties here? And nothing has been done in respect of compensation so that we can use it to provide another set of buildings and develop an alternative place.
The deal we want from government What we are asking is that the relocation should not be a do or die affair, it has to be done gradually and made in such a way that our customers would not be disorganized and those of us in the business supplying rice to many states. If you go to Lagos and Abuja and see how they value Abakaliki rice you will marvel and it is in high demand and valued outside the state.
That is why we are appealing to government to reconsider the quit notice and give enough us time to relocate; you could imagine that the rural farmers, because of the bad roads during the rainy season have all transferred their rice to this mill which they will mill by July and August when they will use the money for the new farming season and many of them are not good in banking while some do not know how to read and write.
No comments:
Post a Comment