By Lucy Ogalue
The Executive Secretary of the National Sugar Development Council (NSDC), Mr Kamar Bakrin, says Nigeria’s sugar sector can generate about one million jobs across its value chain.
Bakrin spoke during a strategic meeting between the council and the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) at the Customs Headquarters in Abuja.
He said a fully-developed sugar industry could transform rural communities, strengthen industrialisation and check insecurity through large-scale employment opportunities for youths.
“If Nigeria succeeds in developing a proper sugar sector, one of the things we would do is convert an annual outflow of over one billion dollars into jobs, security, and industrialisation.
“The sector can create 250,000 direct jobs and an additional indirect 750,000 jobs across its value chain, primarily across about 12 states.
“The beauty of it is that these are rural jobs, not city jobs.
According to Bakrin, Nigeria currently spends more than one billion dollars annually on sugar imports and that local production can convert the outflow into domestic investments and jobs.
He said that modern sugar estates generated their own electricity independently of the national grid and could also supply excess power for national use.
“A sugar estate consumes only about 50 per cent of the energy it produces, while the rest can be injected into the national grid,” he said.
Bakrin described Customs as a critical partner in implementing the Nigeria Sugar Master Plan through quota enforcement, anti-smuggling operations and import regulation.
Responding, the Comptroller-General of Customs, Bashir Adeniyi, pledged support for the sugar sector transformation agenda.
Adeniyi said the sector’s potential for job creation, energy supply, rural development and economic diversification aligned with Nigeria’s national priorities. (NAN)(www.nannews.ng)
Edited by Ese E. Ekama-Williams
