FG DIRECTS THE NSC AND THE ITF TO COME UP WITH A FRAMEWORK WITHIN THE NEXT THREE MONTHS ON MEASURES TO GROW THE SECTOR 10-05-25
By Sadiq Aminu The Federal Government has directed the National Sugar Council and the Industrial Training Fund to come up with a framework within the next three months on measures to grow the sector.
The Minister of State for Industry, Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, Senator John Enoh gave the directive during the inauguration of governing boards of the National Sugar Council and the Industrial Training Fund in Abuja.
Senator Enoh who expressed commitment to work with the boards to reposition the sector, stressed the need for stakeholders to work on the Brown Fill Backward Integration Project to enhance sugar production in the country.
He said within the last twelve years, sugar importers had benefitted from incentives like quota allocations amounting to two billion dollars with less than five hundred million dollars investment on the Backward Integration policy.
“The National Sugar Development Council needs to be more up and doings in terms of its role, convenient, regulatory and supervision. Within the next three months, I must be ready as the reporting Minister to brief the President as to what steps have been taken to make sure that we are able to recover and make progress from where we are taking all this from.
We must fully implement the brown filled bago integration project which sides are being worked upon now, are the sides for example are fertile enough for the growing of sugar Cane.
Senator Enoh maintained that President Bola Tinubu was concerned about the poor growth of the industry as the Federal Government targeted the production of two million metric tons but only about sixty thousand was achieved last year.
“Mr President is angry for the right reasons in terms of the volume of sugar produced in terms of metric tonnes where the of two millions at December 2024, we can only talk about sixty six thousand six hundred and ninety.
In terms of installed factory capacity, our target was one hundred and thirty five thousand, we only have six thousand eight hundred”
The chairman Board of the, Senator Surajudeen Basiru and his counterpart, Industrial Training Fund, Hamma Ali kumo thanked the ministry for giving them the opportunity to serve then nation and pledged to carryout policies that would revamp the sector.