Abuja: The Minister of State for Industry, Sen. John Enoh, has emphasized the need for Nigeria’s sugar industry to meet its domestic production targets, aligning with the goals of the National Sugar Master Plan (NSMP). Enoh highlighted this during a high-level stakeholders’ meeting in Abuja, stressing the Federal Government’s commitment to implementing the master plan as the guiding framework for the industry’s operations.
According to News Agency of Nigeria, the NSMP, introduced in 2012 and currently in its second phase, aims to achieve self-sufficiency in sugar production, create jobs, and conserve foreign exchange. Enoh reiterated that the core objectives of the NSMP are to significantly increase local raw sugar production and reduce the country’s dependence on sugar imports. He stated that quota allocations to industry participants would be strictly based on their performance under the plan’s Backward Integration Programme (BIP).
The minister warned that any imports of refined sugar by participating companies would count against their annual quota allocation and that infractions would not be tolerated. Enoh also mentioned that efforts by the National Sugar Development Council to tie import allocations to performance in 2024 marked a turning point, revealing that some players still violated the guidelines. To address this, he plans to request the Finance Minister and Coordinating Minister of the Economy to direct the Nigeria Customs Service and the Federal Inland Revenue Service to recover all outstanding duties and levies on sugar imports.
Enoh called for increased investment in backward integration and skills development, emphasizing the need for a disciplined focus to achieve the master plan’s objectives. He announced plans for nationwide visits to BIP project sites to verify performance claims and urged the creation of a public dashboard to track sectoral progress.
The Executive Secretary of the National Sugar Development Council (NSDC), Mr. Kamar Bakrin, expressed the council’s commitment to addressing challenges faced by operators in the sector. He highlighted issues such as loopholes in the Free Trade Zone regime, delays in clearing equipment at ports, sugar smuggling, and resistance from host communities. Bakrin noted that these issues were being resolved through government interventions and policy reforms.
Bakrin stressed the importance of halting the decline in current output, especially in agronomic and factory practices, and called for an urgent scale-up of brownfield BIP operations. He emphasized that the sector was already a decade behind the initial timelines set by the NSMP.
In his remarks, the Chairman of Golden Sugar, Mr. John Coumantaros, acknowledged the industry’s shortcomings and supported the minister’s reform stance. He highlighted the need for a $4 billion investment to replace the 1.6 million tonnes of sugar Nigeria imports annually and emphasized the potential economic benefits of strong enforcement and collaboration.
The meeting concluded with commitments from both the government and industry operators to convene quarterly reviews, reinvigorate monitoring mechanisms, and align public-private efforts towards achieving measurable results.
