▪︎Photo: Third from left is Mr Kamar Bakrin, with the Editors of the Industry Tracker.
The Executive Secretary/CEO of the National Sugar Development Council (NSDC), Mr. Kamar Bakrin, has assured that the ongoing reforms by the Council and expansion plans by operators will make thousands of jobs available for Nigerians very soon.
Bakrin disclosed this in an interview with “Industry Tracker,” a publication of the Commerce and Industry Correspondents Association of Nigeria (CICAN).
The Executive Secretary said that based on the mandate and new targets given to the major sugar operators by the Council, they have embarked on an aggressive expansion that will create high-paying jobs for Nigerians in the coming months.
“You are going to see a lot of employment because each of the sugar operators have very aggressive expansion plans which we have seen and we have also engaged them on what they need to do.
“You will see a lot more economic activity. You know, both in terms of logistics and so on and so forth, a lot is going on in the sugar producing estates, and it will translate into jobs for the local communities, for suppliers, for contractors and all of that, because everybody is now scrambling to move.
They are laying irrigation pipes, they are completing other infrastructure, they are expanding their factories and rehabilitating them and so on.
So, you see a lot of that. Of course, we will still continue to import sugar for some time. I told you it has quite a significant gestation period, but at least we will see those benefits very soon. And you know, there is nothing better than employment. I can sit down and promise you we will crash the price of sugar and all that. But jobs are the real things.
“I am talking about thousands of jobs. These are good quality jobs. Some of them are factory jobs. Yes, some of them are farm jobs, some of them are seasonal.
But there are quite a number of factory jobs that will be created that are sustainable. And the economic impact on that is going to be very significant,” he said.
Mr. Bakrin emphasised the need for a comprehensive approach to addressing community hostility, a long-standing challenge in the sugar industry.