Why is there an error in cordova-plugin-nativestorage with nativeStorage.setItem?

Question

Apache Cordova

Installed the cordova-plugin-nativestorage plugin, in app.module.ts

import { NativeStorage } from '@ionic-native/native-storage/ngx';
@NgModule({
providers: [
    NativeStorage
  ]
})

in the ts file of the page

constructor(private nativeStorage: NativeStorage){
this.nativeStorage.setItem('myitem', 123)
      .then(
        () => console.log('Stored item!'),
        error => console.error('Error storing item', error)
      );

this.nativeStorage.getItem('myitem')
      .then(
        data => console.log(data),
        error => console.error(error)
      );
}

When running TypeError: Object(...) is not a function on the line with this.nativeStorage.setItem even though typeof this.nativeStorage.setItem returns a function