Cross River cassava processing plant to produce commercial starch, modified flour ― Ayade

Governor Ben Ayade of Cross River State has that the cassava processing factory located in Obubra Local Government Area of the state would produce commercial starch and modified flour, when operational.

Governor Ayade who disclosed this at the weekend, explained that his administration’s choice of Obubra for the cassava processing plant was informed by the abundant availability of the raw materials for the factory in the locality.

“The cassava processing factory is located in Obubra because Obubra is the largest producer of cassava in Cross River State and Cross River State is the largest producer of cassava in Nigeria,” he said.

Describing Cross River as Nigeria’s new industrial hub, Ayade expressed delight that his fellow governors had seen the wisdom in industrialising their states and had started to copy his industrialisation policy, cautioning them no to copy Cross River wrongly.

“What I have done in Cross River State is to set up so many factories and each factory is cited in a location consistent with the source of raw material and I am happy today that, I can see some of my colleague governors rapidly copying all of my industries and I hope they are careful not to copy an industry that is not applicable in their local circumstance”, Ayade enthused.

“For example, if you put a cocoa processing factory where you don’t grow cocoa, then it doesn’t add up, so you have to be careful which industry you copy from Cross River State otherwise you will be copying a wrong industry,” he cautioned.

The Cross River State governor expressed delight that his modest efforts at industrialisation was becoming a model, saying: “I am happy to see that gradually, almost all the Governors are beginning to realise that creating industries is better than creating roads.”

“Roads don’t create jobs, but when you create factories, people supply raw materials, people do logistics and delivery, when they start making money, they start paying taxes, then the profit from these taxes, government will use to do roads.

“In China, roads are now gradually becoming private roads. So public roads are now hardly in use because people will use shortcuts, well-maintained roads to go through. It is a model I have found applicability in Cross River circumstance and I think it has worked very well,” he added.

The governor further disclosed that the over 30 factories he had built are at the phase of market lunch, noting that the industrialisation drive of his administration would usher the state into a prosperity agenda never witnessed before in the state.

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