Disagreement ensued Monday between the Senate Committee on Science and Technology and the Raw Materials Research and Development Council ( RMRDC) over performance index of the latter within the last 32 years.
While members of the committee wondered why the Raw Materials Development Council has not saved the Nation from spending huge amount of dollars on yearly basis on importation of goods that can be produced locally , the director general of the council, Professor Hussani Ibrahim , said it has performed optimally within available resources .
Specifically, a member of the committee, Senator Ibrahim Hadeija (APC Jigawa north) queried the RMRDC boss on what the agency is doing as regards provision of raw materials for drug related items the country spends $809m to import on yearly basis , sugar costing Nigeria $46m on yearly basis , tyres costing the country $309m and wheat , costing the nation $1.09billion on yearly basis .
“What has your agency done or doing to save the country from spending these huge amount of money on importation of goods that can be produced locally through required raw materials, he asked
Another member of the committee , Senator Clifford Ordia ( PDP Edo central), in his tackled the DG by saying the performance index he had given , all dwelled on process story of doing this and that without concrete achievement in terms of raw materials development in line with the core mandate of the research council.
“Is this the success story that you are going to tell us after 33 years? There is nothing here. We are just surviving on importation of raw materials. You have not been able to have your own done. This agency is just wasting our money,” he said .
However Professor Ibrahim in his response said the research council had done a lot within the last 30 years of its existence.
He said : “Our 30 years of research activities, we are still the largest research institute. But to be candid with you, we are making progress. For now, we have developed a technology to optimise Kilishi production. Research activity takes time to produce concrete results.
“We have developed two varieties of sorghum, we collaborated with agricultural research institutes, pharmaceutical industries, because we produce ethanol from it and that is the basic raw material for the production of sanitizers.”
