by By Elijah Ugani – Calabar
The Cross River State Governor, Sen. Ben Ayade has called on the enumerators for the conduct of National Census of Commercial and Industrial Businesses (NCCIB) in Nigeria to undertake a thorough, detailed and comprehensive job, considering the significance of the data, which is to determine intervention by both World Bank and International Organizations.
Ayade made the call while he declared open a three day training of 64 data collectors/enumerators to be deployed to the 18 local government areas of the state.
The Governor was represented in the event by the Commissioner for Industries, Mr. Peter Egba, and held that “I want to use this opportunity to call on the enumerators undergoing this training to be more committed now than ever to ensure a thorough and detailed data collection during this exercise as the data collected from this survey will form the basis for intervention by both the World Bank and International Organizations.
“This survey will not have come at a better time than now considering the number of industries this administration is building.
It will provide both the government and private sector as well as farmers the opportunity to identify raw materials for a particular industry. The Feed Mill Industry for instance, necessarily follows that one should know that the need for the cultivation of yellow maize and soya beans is very necessary, since they will be off takers”
Delivering the keynote address, the South South Zonal Controller of National Bureau of Statistics, Mr. Oboh Ismaila, noted that the exercise is going on simultaneously in all the 36 states of the federation including FCT. This exercise provides us the opportunity to right the wrongs currently going on in Nigeria.
He revealed that this exercise was last held in Nigeria in 1997/1998.
“Left for the federal government alone, this exercise will not hold, but the World Bank has facilitated this process.
“Keynote address is to make appeal, I hereby appeal to cross river state government to take ownership of the process by providing the security needed by the enumerators to undertake a thorough and comprehensive job” he added.
He called on the Commissioner, Local Government Affairs to step up and get the Local Government Chairmen on board to drive the process.
He however charged the enumerators to brace up to the challenges associated with the tedious nature of the assignment. All the 18 LGAs, villages have been segmented and must be covered.
Earlier, the Statistician General of the State, Dr. Josephat Ogar, stated that “policies are developed from challenges, we have gaps that will enable us to identify these challenges.
We are gather here to train you to collect data that will enable us address these challenges. This exercise is to last for 50 days, kindly consider making yourself available to enter the nooks and crannies of the state to get data that will form the fulcrum of our developmental agenda.
“Industries, Businesses and Enterprises in the state should support the census or Enterprise survey by making information available to the Enumerators that would come around to interview them.
“This is so because Enterprises would be the first beneficiaries of the data which would inform interventions around Enterprise development and assistance.
The exercise is not for taxation but purely for development planning and intervention”
On his part, the state Acting Director of National Orientation Agency, Mr. Ogban Ammissine Usetu, noted that “since independence, Nigeria has struggled to tap properly and positively her human and material potentials to kick start and establish a very strong and sustainable industrial base, this can only happen when we put in place a strong, verifiable national and state records, statistics and sustainable supervision as I implore this programme to achieve.
“The National and State Bureau of Statistics are to be commended for coming together to put records straight by the conduct of National Census of Commercial and Industrial Businesses. It will be very much advisable to give ample considerations by looking the direction of the micro, small and medium scale enterprises, as these are the bedrock of industrial growth in the economy”
The National Census of Commercial and Industrial Businesses in Nigeria is organized by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in collaboration with World Bank under the Fiscal Governance and Institutions Project (FGIP).
The objectives of the census is to determine the growth of businesses, both formal and informal in Nigeria, to assist in the development of a national directory of commercial and business establishments as well as provide the country with comprehensive and detailed information about the structure of the economy.
The training is to last between 6th – 8th October, 2020 while field work is to commence from 12th October – 3rd December, 2020.
