By FRANKLIN ALLITHE Federal Government is working hard to kick start its sugar master plan projects by siting 236,000 land banks in seventeen states for sugarcane production.
This was disclosed during the week by Dr. Latif Busari, Executive Secretary, National Sugar Develoment Council, Abuja.
In his paper entitled ‘Leveraging on Nigerian Sugar Master Plan for Inclusive Economic Growth’, he said 236 thousand hectares of land is needed to kick off the project and the land banks will be designated in 17 states across the country.
He identified the affected states as follows – zamafara, Katsina, Kwara, Kogi,, Jigawa, Imo and Edo including Cross River and Benue. Others states are Taraba , Ogun , Plateau , Ondo , Anambra and Adamawa.
According to him, the sugar industry is a promoter of Investment, job and wealth creation and a tool for rapid rural development as it create communities that are self sufficient.
citing India as an example, he said that in India the sugar industry employs one million people directly and six million indirectly, stressing that is what it will do for Nigeria.
He also said that the federal government will discuss with the states governments to land available to existing and prospective investors for the project.
The project which has a ten years plan period is estimated to cost $3. 1 billion to implement.
The objectives of the project are to raise local sugar production to attain self sufficiency as in the cement sector , stem the tide of importation of raw sugar, contribute to the production of ethanol and generation of electricity.
Culled: Vanguard
No comments:
Post a Comment