Cross River State governor, Professor Ben Ayade, has commissioned an ultra-modern toothpick factory at Ekori, Yarkurr Local Government Area of the state. The factory is said to be capable of producing 31 million toothpicks in a day. Speaking at the event, Ayade disclosed that “this administration was trying to create an economy that will radically alter the economic landscape of the state. The country does not just change by mere promulgation of policy, the country changes by systematic, active but very visionary step by step approach towards the realisation of set objectives and one of the set objectives is to move Cross River State from the third world to the first world under my eight years in office.”
“The Ministry of Agriculture in 2016 decried an average of 18 million dollars spent annually importing toothpicks into Nigeria, hence the federal government put toothpicks importation under the dollar access prohibition list, which means it cannot give you dollars if you intend to import toothpick, so we decided to take advantage of the policy to set up this factory.”
Ayade disclosed that only Cross River has such a factory as a state-owned project, which is 100 per cent managed by indigenes, creating jobs for the people.
While urging indigenes of the area to go into massive commercial cultivation of bamboo which is the raw material for toothpicks, the governor said”It has a short gestation period that is why it belongs to the grass family and it grows veraciously with wide growth.
“Cultivate enough bamboo trees; we can produce 31 million toothpicks in a day which is lots of business and money with massive turnover.”
