Executive Secretary/CEO, the National Sugar Development Council, Zacch Adedeji, has assured stakeholders in the sugar industry of the Federal Government’s commitment to the full implementation of the Nigeria Sugar Master Plan.
    
He made the comment when he and his team visited Flour Mills of Nigeria and Golden Sugar refinery on a working visit. Speaking on how far the body has gone in implementing the Nigeria Sugar Master Plan, he said; “We have come a long way in defining what we need to do, which the master plan did seven years ago. We identified that we need to move to self-sufficiency in local sugar production, and that was what gave birth to the Nigeria Sugar Master Plan. 
 
“Before the master plan, we imported sugar. But from inception till now, we only import raw materials, and we refine 100 per cent today in Nigeria.
  
“On the backward integration which is the main focus of the master plan, we are moving in the right direction though slowly.

“The consumption rate in Nigeria as of today is around 1.5 million metric tons and we have a target of producing 1.7 million metric tons.
  
“We have three major operators in the industry and they are committed to making sure that we achieve the mandate of the master plan. I have gone round the three refineries, and I am impressed. I am sure that we will transfer the same commitment that we put in setting up these refineries to the backward integration, which requires a lot of capital, lands and commitment.”
   
On his part, Deputy Chief Operating Officer, Agro-Allied, Flour Mill, Sadiq Usman, said: “We signed up to the Backward Integration Programme (BIP) through our subsidiary (Golden Sugar) in 2013.” I am pleased to say that we have identified a piece of land, we announced the addition of another piece in Niger State in February, and we have developed a total of 3,000 hectares, built a sugar mill and sugar estate. We have invested over N65 billion in that and another $200 billion in the Apapa refinery.”