FG: Expanding Sugar Production Will Fetch Nigeria $350m Annually, Create 110,000 Jobs

Deji Elumoye in Abuja

The Federal Executive Council (FEC) rose from its weekly meeting yesterday, with an approval of the second phase of the National Sugar Masterplan, a ten-year plan billed to save $350 million annually and create 110,000 jobs.

The Industry, Trade and Investment Minister, Mr. Niyi Adebayo made the disclosure to newsmen after the FEC meeting held at Abuja, which was presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari.

He stressed that apart from the forex savings and job creation targets from the second phase of the masterplan, Nigeria also looks forward to save $65.8 million on ethanol import and generate 400 megawatts of electricity.

While emphasising that investments in national sugar policy was aimed at stimulating self-sufficiency in the commodity, Adebayo said no fewer than 15,000 jobs have been created through key players in the industry.

He listed Dangote, BUA, Golden Sugar mills, among key stakeholders jointly owning about 200,000 hectares of sugarcane plantation in the country.

The minister said: “Today, my ministry brought a memo seeking Council’s approval for the second phase of the National Sugar Masterplan. In 2012, the first phase of the sugar master plan was approved, lasting from 2012 to 2022.

“Today, Council approved the extension from 2023 to 2033. That’s for another 10 years and the whole idea of the Sugar Masterplan is for the development of the sugar industry, for self-sufficiency in sugar production.

“The plan has several policy measures or fiscal incentives to stimulate demand and attract private sector investment in the sugar industry. Part of the benefits of the sugar masterplan is the local production of sugar.

“We have under phase one, four major investors, investing in the industry. These are Dangote Sugar, BUA Sugar, Golden Sugar Company which is flour mill, Care Africa Group which bought the Baccita sugar mill.

“They have jointly created 15,000 jobs, and they have over almost about 200,000 hectares of land that has been acquired for the production of sugarcane to enable them produce sugar locally. So Council approved phase two of the National Sugar Masterplan”.

Commenting on the target of the second phase of the masterplan, Adebayo said, “the sugar masterplan has witnessed many successes since 2012 when it was first approved. Nigeria has a sugar refining capacity of three million metric tons of raw sugar a year bow.

“We have embarked on the Backward Integration Project, which has attracted over $3 billion worth of investments from the four major investors that I mentioned earlier.

“Investments have also been made in Greenfield Sugar Projects, that is smaller projects all across the country. In Jigawa, Kogi, Zamfara, Oyo and Sokoto states. We’ve also established the National Sugar Institute in Ilorin.

“Those are some of the achievements that we have had over the past 10 years and phase two of the Sugar Masterplan that has just been approved, we’re hoping that as a result of this phase two, we will be able to create 110,000 jobs from it.

“We are hopeful that Nigeria will be able to produce 1.7 to 1.8 million metric tons of sugar a year, thus eliminating the $350 million that we spend on the importation of raw sugar.

“We’re hoping to produce 161 million litres of ethanol annually, which will thus eliminate $65.8 million of ethanol imports annually. We’re hoping to generate 400 megawatts of electricity and we’re hoping to produce 1.6 million tons of animal feed annually.”

On the mechanisms built to protect the flow of the masterplan, the Minister said, “we have a two-tier monitoring and evaluation framework in place to stop any attempts to destroy the sugar masterplan. We have what we call the Sugar Roadmap Implementation Committee (SURMIC) and this is a multi-agency committee, charged with supervision of the National Sugar Masterplan.

“We also have another committee called the Sugar Industry Monitoring Group (SIMOG), this is composed of the chief executives of all the local sugar manufacturing companies. This is like a peer review committee. We have these committees in place to see to it that there is no distortion of the sugar master plan.

“The three million tonnes capacity we have is based on refining raw sugar. At the moment, most of the sugar we refine is imported raw sugar, phase two is leading us to self-sufficiency in producing raw sugar in Nigeria”.