Annual report on Nigeria / Colonial Office.

  • Great Britain. Colonial Office.
Date:
[1949]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report on Nigeria / Colonial Office. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    75/134 (page 69)
    Council in 1948, and provided for the establishment of marketing boards, designed to secure the most favourable arrangements for purchase, grading, export and marketing, to control and fix producer prices, and to allocate funds for working capital, price stabilisation, reserve, research, and regional board activities. These marketing boards, each comprising a chairman, two official members, and three non-official Nigerian members, were to be advised by representative committees, composed of an official chairman, one official member, one non-official representative of the licensed buying agents, and a majority of non-official Nigerian members. Regional Production Development Boards, to be composed of representatives of the Regional Houses of Assembly and of the representative committees, were also to be established, to dispose of funds made available by the marketing boards for development and for the benefit of producers and areas of production. The policy so approved was given legisla¬ tive form in 1949 in the Nigeria Groundnut Marketing Ordinance (No. 11) and the Nigeria Oil Palm Produce Marketing Ordinance (No. 12), and somewhat similar arrangements, except as regards Production Development Boards, were made in the Nigeria Cotton Marketing Ordinance (No. 13). Marketing arrangements for cocoa had already been embodied in the Nigeria Cocoa Marketing Board Ordinance, and this was amended (Ordinance No. 19) so as to enable the Board to make and Govern¬ ment to receive loans, the actual terms being a matter for negotiation in each case. The amending Ordinance also limited the Board’s previous exemption from the operation of the Income Tax Ordinance. I he emphasis laid on the regional character of economic develop¬ ment was illustrated, also, in the Regional Development Boards Ordinance (No. 14) which established in each Region (with Lagos and the Colony counted as a Region) a Development Board to make and receive loans and finance local development. These Boards, which contain a majority of representatives of the Regional Houses in their composition, replaced the Nigeria Local Development Board, set up in 1946, which was found to be too centralised, and not adapted for the encouragement of small schemes or individual enter¬ prise. They took over the original Board’s funds, which can be supplemented by appropriation by the Legislative Council, loans from Native Authorities, and income from investment and mort¬ gages, and they are empowered to make advances for schemes cojinected with public works and utilities, town and village planning, the development of village crafts and industries, land settlement and utilisation, and similar purposes. A consequential amendment to the Development Loan Ordinance was made by Ordinance No. 8. In the hope of giving further encouragement to private enterprise in promoting economic development an amendment (Ordinance No. 16) to the Income Tax Ordinance was passed. As it was con¬ sidered that local limited liability companies have now a large part to play, a scale of relief, extending over the first six years of their