▪︎From left :Mr Kamar Bakrin, Executive Secretary/CEO, NSDC, and Barr. Emeka Obegolu, President of Abuja Chamber of Commerce.
The National Sugar Development Council (NSDC) has commenced discussion with the Abuja Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) to seek potential collaborations that can add value to the Council’s search for serious investments into the sugar subsector.
The discussion commenced with the visit of ACCI leadership led by Barr. Emeka Obegolu, to the Executive Secretary/CEO of the Council, Mr. Kamar Bakrin.
Mr. Bakrin shared the history and mandate of the Council as well as the destination and the direction it must take to get there.
“The task before the agency is a momentous one, which quite frankly, I am very, very happy to say that with the calibre of team that I have, I am confident that it is a task that we will give a very, very good account of ourselves at the end of our tenure in terms of moving Nigeria closer to this task, the task of self-sufficiency in sugar production.
How do we do this? How do we go about prosecuting our mandate?
The council has broadly three dimensions along which it pursues its mandate.
One is apparently supporting the development and the establishment of sugar-producing projects around the country.
“Another one is providing the research and development required to ensure that the capacity of the industry is enhanced to be able to actually do its work.
The research and development cuts across so many facets, including the development of new varieties and the multiplication of existing varieties, to be able to make this available to the operators in the sector.
“And a third leg of it is serving as a regulator in terms of ensuring primarily the stability of the market to ensure that there is sugar on citizens’ tables at affordable prices.
This, in a nutshell, is essentially the mandate of the NSDC. We execute our mandate through what is termed the Nigerian Sugar Master Plan (NSMP), which is in its second phase.
The NSMP is a blueprint. It’s a ten-year blueprint geared towards self-sufficiency in sugar production. The target is for us to be able to produce two million metric tons of sugar, which covers the current consumption of about 1.8 million tons.
So, that is essentially what the objective of the NSMP II is; as it is known, it is predicated on about seven pillars.
And I think this is important, given the fact that as the key platform for private sector operators, it’s important to look at how potentially the chamber can also key into different aspects of this.
We have identified several critical pillars. I’m not going to go through all of them, but rather focus on a handful of them that are important towards the achievement of our NSMP II.
“A key one is the identification and operationalisation of viable sites for the growing of sugarcane and for the production of sugar.
That is a very important thing for us. Part of what we are doing in that regard is a comprehensive nationwide survey of the most viable sites for growing cane, as well as the establishment of a robust technology platform for tracking the various attributes of the sites that are so identified.
Also, probably the most important relevant aspect to you is the attraction of credible players into the sector who can embark on sugar production, which is actually a very, very sustainably profitable opportunity.
We have seen this demonstrated without any doubt in countries such as Tanzania, Senegal and so on and so forth that have recently embarked on similar programs with incredible success.
Source: NSDC X