Jaafar Jaafar
2 January 2009
Acute shortage of groundnuts has hit Kano manufacturers as some of the oil millers in the state have resorted to extracting soya oil instead groundnuts oil.
Alhaji Umaru Lawan, chairman of the Small Scale Industrialists (Kano-Sharada Branch), said in an interview with Daily Trust that groundnut crunch has dealt a serious blow to the manufacturing sector and has caused the soaring cost of groundnuts cooking oil in the country.
Apart from the millers, Lawan said, poultry feed producers also bear the brunt of the scarcity and the rising cost.
"As you know we utilise its cake, which provides 41 percent of the protein in our poultry feed. Now many small-scale industries processing the groundnut cake are no longer exiting due to lack of this commodity throughout the country," he said.
Stating further, Alhaji Lawan, who is also the managing director/CEO of Superb Feed and Veterinary Services Limited, said the federal government must place an order to import groundnuts from outside the country so as to save the situation from worsening.
"It is dismaying to note that we are complaining in December, and we have about 10 months ahead to reach another October - which is the usual harvesting period. This is a very big problem that government has to do something about", he said.
He also said considering its scarcity, people have started hoarding the commodity, saying despite the fact that the price of a tonne of groundnuts costs N120,000, the stock is not always readily available.
The chairman said the cheap oil imported into the country is crippling the efforts of local manufacturers, who manage to operate under the pressing moments of energy crisis in the country.
He said another problem of importing the oil instead of the parent stock is that the locally-produced oil will not have value and the manufacturers will sell at loss, saying the only way they could make gainful investment is by selling the cake at a much higher price, which will bring rise in the prices of poultry feed.
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