The federal government has been urged not to decongest the ports in the country but rather should transform them by cleaning up some administrative bottlenecks.
Speaking at the launch of Women Agro Processors Agricgen and the flag-off of the national export centre Thursday in Abuja, the President of WAPA-GEIN, Esther Adebayo, said high transaction cost or even plain extortion from illegal taxes that do not go into the coffers of the government should be rapidly modernized and transformed.
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She said ports should be for facilitating business, exports, stimulating industrial manufacturing, and competitiveness of local business and exports.
She called on the federal government to increase the training and employment of extension workers and other supportive services to boost increase in agricultural production.
She said, “the state governments are to establish farm settlements, clusters of agro producers including women and youths. Farm settlement estates should have all basic amenities including the internet so as to discourage rural to urban migration.”
In his address, the Permanent Secretary, Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA), Mr Olusade Adesola, said the FCT Administration had over the years been consciously creating the enabling environment for agro and allied business development through its Agricultural and Social Development Secretariats.
He said, “we are very much aware that the wealth and job creation potentials that are associated with agro value chain business are quite enormous.
“And all of these can be productively harnessed if our teeming youths and women embrace agriculture as a viable and sustainable means of earning income,’’ he said.