How National Sugar Council can generate over 180,000 jobs , by Executive Secretary

DR Latif Busari, the Executive Secretary of National Sugar Development Council, said on Wednesday that the sugar sub-sector would generate over 180,000 jobs in the economy if well developed.

Busari told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja that “If we implement the National Sugar Master Plan as planned by the Federal Government, it would create over 180, 0000 jobs”.

“We are just two years into the programme and by the time all the downstream sectors are developed, that amount of people would be employed in the industry,’’ Busari said.

Busari said that currently the sector employed between 11,000 and 12,000 people through the value chain, adding that this involved employees from farms to marketers.

He said that no fewer 2,000 employments were involved from the packaging of sugar alone, adding that the processes involved both skilled and unskilled people.

Busari said that before the Sugar Master Plan came into existence, many people were involved in packaging foreign sugar, adding that the policy had brought about ban on the importation of sugar.

He said this had let to the creation of lots of employment opportunities in the sugar sub-sector of the economy.

According to him, the National Mater Plan has been approved in 2012, while the implementation took off in 2013.

Busari called on the Federal Government to assist the council by providing an intervention fund for it as it did for Small and Medium Scale sub-sector.

He said that sugar industry was capital intensive and called on investors to take advantage of Federal Government’s incentives to invest in the sub-sector.

He urged the Nigerian Customs Service personnel to help the council to ensure that all sugar-related commodities banned by the government were not allowed into the country. (NAN)