The Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) has affirmed the revitalisation of 11 fertiliser blending plants that will deliver over 6 million bags of NPK fertiliser at 30 per cent below market price in the country.
This was revealed by the Managing Director, NSIA, Uche Orji, in Abuja yesterday, as he received the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, on a courtesy visit to him. Also known as the Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF), the move by the NSIA is set to create 50,000 jobs for unemployed youths in the country.
According to Orji, the rehabilitation of the plants that had been in moribund state or capacity, will save the government on money expended on subsidy.
“Through this intervention, the Fund has saved the government over 50 billion naira in subsidy this year, based on the fact that the government used to subsidise fertilser to the tune of N6, 000 per bag; and six other moribund fertiliser blending plants across the country are at various stages of rehabilitation and will come on board by the end of the year,” he said.
He stated that the fertiliser initiative will assist the government to conserve foreign exchange through the substitution of 65 per cent components of the fertiliser with local content, help eliminate fertiliser subsidy and middlemen in the distribution process by putting whistle blower telephone numbers on every bag to prevent any arbitrary increase in the price of the commodity.
Furthermore, the Information Minister also commended the authority for its intervention in the critical sectors of the economy and that the present administration has succeeded in breaking the affliction in fertiliser supply to farmers.
“You have crashed the commodity price, improve the type of fertiliser that you render to farmers, and deflated the fertiliser challenges in the country, which of course have contributed to the increased yield from about 2 metric tonnes per hectare to 7 metric tonnes; and in some area 11 metric tonnes” the Minister acknowledged
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